


To Do All in my Power

by terri_testing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1768249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terri_testing/pseuds/terri_testing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dumbledore extracted two promises from Snape that night.  Fulfilling the first may be even harder than the second.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breath and Paint

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from sycophanthex.com/occlumency
> 
> Originally written shortly after DH; my current reading of Dumbledore is less benevolent than here.

_“And if it does fall into his grasp,” said Dumbledore, almost, it seemed, as an aside, “I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students of Hogwarts?”  
Snape gave a stiff nod.  
  
_ __**This is the place  
you would rather not know about  
this is the place that will inhabit you   
this is the place you cannot imagine  
this is the place that will finally defeat you  
  
where the word why shrivels and empties  
itself. This is famine.**

_**  
“Notes towards a Poem That Can Never Be Written,” Margaret Atwood  
**  
_ The tower was warded against broomsticks but left open to natural flight. So a phoenix, or an owl, or a wizard who could fly could enter the office without passing the gargoyle. Snape would perhaps correct that security lapse when the office became his own. But a wizard who was hunted could only pass in deepest dark. Three hours yet until dawn. They had established Snape’s immediate course of action and his story to give the Dark Lord. Time yet to get some direction on that—other question—before he must leave.  
  
“Headmaster.”  
  
Dumbledore had fallen into a silent reverie, but the painted eyes snapped back to him at the title.  
  
“Speaking of … the Carrows. I should wish to review with you some of the steps I am considering to protect the other students.”  
  
A pause, broken only by the whirring of some silver toy. Then the portrait murmured, “You think that the Ministry will fall soon, then? And that your position will be assured?”  
  
“Yes. We judge, perhaps within the fortnight. Certainly well before the start of term. And with that fortunate occurrence, of course, we shall start accusing Potter of the—event—upon the Tower, so as to hunt him openly. I, being thus exonerated, can be placed here quite without disguise. The Dark Lord is, ah, capricious in bestowing rewards, but in fact I’m his logical choice. For several reasons, among them that forcing your staff to accept me will be the cruelest possible advertisement of the Dark Lord’s power. As you no doubt anticipated.”  
  
Dumbledore’s head tilted, inviting him to continue. On the walls around them the other portraits had abandoned the affectation of sleeping that had given the two of them a semblance of privacy. Painted eyes surrounded him. Snape took a breath, addressing his expanded audience.   
  
“I believe that the Dark Lord expects that he can ultimately pressure most of the students to follow him. He has, after all, been adequately successful in attracting students in the past even without the advantage of a headmaster who is his tool. Hoping this, he is unlikely to indulge a taste for wholesale slaughter here at Hogwarts. I except, of course, the Muggle-born students, who I believe will be expelled or worse. I see no way at this time that I can preserve them. I doubt they will be brought within my grasp.”  
  
“A problem we must consider,” Dumbledore agreed. “And those who are within your grasp?”  
  
“I have not yet received my instructions, but I expect that I shall be restraining the Carrows from outright murder. At least at first, while the Dark Lord holds hopes of persuasion. If he decides certain cases are insusceptible—or to increase the pressure on others—he will naturally relax that standard. “  
  
A pause for a new breath.   
  
“Dumbledore. Do you have any conception of how long we need to hold out?”   
  
A desperate plea, in an expressionless voice. The dead man truly expected that mediocrity to win this war? The portraits surrounding him rustled, wanting an answer as much as he did.  
  
“I can only hope, Severus, and my hopes may be misplaced. Harry knows what he needs to do, in part. How long it will take… I cannot be sure. Certainly longer than a term. With luck and help—and the help available to him will be more limited than I like—within the year. ”  
  
They were discussing a boy’s death sentence.  
  
Snape said dryly, “Perhaps we should investigate ways of smuggling him some Felix Felicis. Or would that offend Gryffindor sensibilities, seeing its use is prohibited in, ah, sporting events?”  
  
“Gryffindor would be willing to be offended. That might actually be possible; we do need to set you up a better pipeline to the Order. Although, anonymous information can be checked. And your Patronus is known and trusted, though its caster is neither. So fortunate that it’s known a true Death Eater can’t cast one.” Dumbledore’s portrait had the temerity to smile at Snape at that.   
  
“But a potion from an unknown source—I can’t imagine Alastor risking it, no matter what tests were performed. No one else in the Order has the skill to be sure of its purity. If we could get it from Horace, or supposedly so, and smuggle it to the Burrow before things break—”  
  
Snape interrupted grimly, “I have none on hand, and there is insufficient time to prepare it. A pity I had not considered this sooner. You might see if Horace is more fortunate in this regard. I need not be involved.”  
  
“Then to return to the students at Hogwarts—“  
  
Snape said crisply, “The considerations making murder unlikely will not apply to torture. The Carrows have been chosen in part because they are second only to dear Bellatrix in their aptitude for the Cruciatus Curse. I will be expected to give them every opportunity to indulge: to break some students directly and to frighten others into acquiescence. That would seem to be the primary immediate danger.   
  
“I intend therefore to retain discipline in my own hands as much as possible. Headmaster’s privilege, to perform the more, ah, enjoyable tasks myself. Punishments need not always be physical, of course; but where they must be, I have developed a nonverbal spell that mimics the external effects of the Cruciatus. The subject contorts, screams, and loses consciousness, with every appearance of pain, and no memory afterward that there was, in fact, none.”   
  
Dumbledore’s portrait laughed outright. “What a, a, an extremely Slytherin approach to the problem, Severus!”  
  
The portrait of Phineas smiled dryly at the compliment. Snape did not.  
  
Dumbledore mused, “But perhaps, Severus….” Painted silver brows drew down in consideration. After a moment, painted eyes dancing, the portrait said, “I take it the actual effect of your spell is completely neutral?”  
  
“A subject might bruise him- or herself in falling.”  
  
“Might I take the liberty of suggesting a modest modification? Perhaps you could incorporate a Fortitudo Charm or the like? I confess, I like the image of a student struck down by an apparent Cruciatus, to bounce up spitting defiance.”  
  
“A Gryffindor, certainly, to be so stupid,“ Snape snorted. “You understand that I should take points?”   
  
He folded his arms, reviewing the problem. “Yes, it should be easy enough—and undetectable, if I proceed subtly.”  
  
Dumbledore smiled seraphically. “I think we may depend on you for subtlety.”   
  
“Dumbledore. The Carrows will not be using my improved version of the Curse. Why has Hogwarts never been warded against the Unforgivable Curses, as it is against Apparition? I cannot believe it would not have been possible! But if I do it now, I betray the charade. The Dark Lord knows all three curses have been operative here—Crouch used them---ah. Unless we can make it look like your posthumous protection?”  
  
The dead headmaster shook his head. “You’re right that it should be possible. For the Headmaster, with the cooperation of the school; you’ll see if it becomes necessary to renew the Anti-Apparition Wards. But to create new, several witches’ or wizards’ strengths would need to be added to the Headmaster’s. I believe the last major revision—“   
  
He broke off, looking inquiringly towards a portrait of a haughty-looking witch. Her bronze hair and cool blue eyes were mirrored by her robes; it had always amused Snape that the hues were not the Ravenclaw tints, but Selwyn’s actual natural colors—as subtle a statement of Ravenclaw insistence on individuality as one could hope to discern. All the other who chose House colors wore the banner hues, even the unfortunate Derwent in her bumblebee getup.   
  
Selwyn answered the implied question. “When I designed the current wards, I used four others for the initial installation, but that was to provide a generous safety margin and a nice House balance. Three would have been ample; two possible; only one other, ah, dangerous to both of us. The primary current concern, I gather, is how many witches or wizards could conceal their involvement from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named under both torture and Legilimency?”  
  
“Which is exactly one still living, whom I can count on.” Dumbledore sighed. “I should, perhaps, have considered this long ago. But in any case, to do it now may not be advisable. Consider. If the Carrows know they cannot use the Cruciatus on Hogwarts grounds, this will not prevent them from torturing. They will use other methods, against which there is no such defense, or they will drag students off-grounds, and thus away from your protection.”  
  
Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Then could it be possible to mitigate the spells’ effects? Muffle them? As a shield cast by a weaker wizard will not afford full protection but will reduce the severity of impact? Against Avada Kedavra no magical shield is possible—but both the Imperius and Cruciatus can be resisted or blocked, in part or whole. A partial protection, then, against those two....”  
  
Snape brushed one long finger against his lip, thinking hard. “We want the Carrows to continue to use them, continue to think them efficacious.”   
  
He frowned, his eyes distant. “If I were to weave wards into the walls of the classrooms where they are to teach—only two rooms, which should be manageable.”  
  
Snape nodded decisively and returned his black gaze to Dumbledore’s portrait. “A poor protection, but better than none.“   
  
“And if the Carrows note that their students show more resistance to curses in class than out?” Dumbledore prompted.  
  
Snape lifted his head to look down his large nose dauntingly. “Discipline in the hallways applies to instructors as well as students. Indeed, more so. One is unfit to discipline others if one cannot discipline oneself. Formal disciplinary measures should always be executed in class or in detention. You, Dumbledore, if I may say so, were lax, allowing teachers too much leeway in such matters. I am quite sure that Potter and his friends would say that you allowed me too much flexibility in punishing them. I shall not repeat your error.  
  
“I have already said, I shall demand oversight and control of all discipline—in the Dark Lord’s name, of course. So four rooms to ward, then, two classrooms, two offices; still possible.   
  
“The Carrows are very unlikely to detect the wards directly; they’ve neither the brains to conceive the idea, the magical skills to detect them, nor the observational powers to deduce them. The Dark Lord is unlikely to inspect that closely unless his suspicions are aroused.“   
  
Snape’s chin came up. “If His suspicions were aroused, both offices and classrooms are standard for the positions. He would find a posthumous protection, obviously fading. Albus Dumbledore was, after all, notorious for his subtlety and forethought. Surely he would have anticipated Hogwarts falling into the Dark Lord’s power and implemented some protections for his students.”   
  
_I would, of course, be punished for my failure to detect them, but he’s unlikely to kill me. Unless he loses control._  
  
A small, private thought of no moment.  
  
Dumbledore’s portrait gave the living Snape a level stare. “Surely I would have implemented some protections for my students…. And did. I installed you. A good start, an excellent start, Severus.”  
  
Several of the portraits were nodding judicious approval. Phineas had folded his arms and assumed a smug expression, but rearranged it to a supercilious pursing of the lips when Dumbledore continued.   
  
“However, I take issue with your analysis that torture is the primary immediate danger.”  
  
Snape raised his own eyebrows and awaited the dead man’s correction.   
  
Dumbledore’s voice proceeded gently, “You have clearly taken good thought for the protection of the students’ bodies. But what of their souls, Severus? Of even greater concern to me than that they should suffer the Cruciatus Curse is that they will almost certainly be asked to perform it.”   
  
The dead man’s voice softened further as he trapped Snape’s black gaze. “How many of the children in your care are you content to see repeat your own… terrible mistake?”  
  
Snape went white.   
  
_**None.**_  
  
Snape didn’t say it. He didn’t need to. He held himself rigid against Dumbledore’s regard, against the painted eyes drilling him from all sides.  
  
“This is why,” Dumbledore’s voice beat harshly for three words, then stopped. The voice softened, continued gently.   
  
“Issues of positioning aside. This is why it must be _you_ to protect these children, not Minerva, even if there were a way for me to maneuver her appointment. Severus, I did not ask you for your word as the lesser of evils! You know, better than any, how Voldemort will try to seduce and coerce these children. You know how he can appeal to weaknesses. To anger. To fear. Even to strengths—to a child’s courage and curiosity and freedom of imagination …   
  
" _You know, Severus, the path he’s trying to get them to start walking…and you know, to your bones, where it ends._ ”  
  
In a flash of green light. Destroying the one thing he valued.   
  
Snape had huddled forward in his chair, lank hair hiding his face.   
  
Dumbledore continued inexorably, “Severus. I failed you when you were my student. I saw you starting on that path, and I couldn’t—think—how to stop you. I am counting on you not to fail these children now.”   
  
Snape gave a stiff nod. 


	2. The Potions Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On 10/31/1981, Severus's errors ended in her death. 
> 
> But now he needs to consider the worse end. 
> 
> The other one.
> 
> And the Potions Master ends by trying to create a serum against self-deception.

It resembles an operation  
but it is not one

nor despite the spread legs, grunts,  
& blood is it a birth.

Partly it’s a job,  
partly it’s a display of skill   
like a concerto.

It can be done badly  
or well, they tell themselves.

Partly it’s an art.

“Notes towards a Poem That Can Never Be Written,” Margaret Atwood

 

Snape’s hands gripped the arms of the shabby chair, unknowingly tearing the upholstery further. In the dim light filtering through the dirty blinds, he could see his rampart of books. None of them could help him. 

He had, unfortunately, some time to think. The Dark Lord had chosen that Spinner’s End should be protected by a Fidelius held by Wormtail: such a refinement of torture, had he known all the truth, that Snape had briefly entertained the suspicion he’d been transparent to the monster all along. 

But no; the Dark Lord hadn’t such patience of cruelty.

Snape had also entertained, briefly, the suspicion that he might not have set strong enough wards to protect himself if Wormtail were to betray him. How much would he struggle if the Aurors found him, given his duty? Probably not enough.

He had brewing assignments; he was subject to being summoned. Otherwise he was alone with his thoughts in a cramped, dark house. Again.

He’d circled back to his first days. Only the thoughts were different.

He’d sat here many times over the years. Not three miles from her house. Thinking of—not her. Of the end. Worse, since the Occlumency lessons. Hearing her voice that the Dementors had raised in her son’s recollections. Her screams, as heard by the boy. Her face lit by green light. He had imagined all that for years.... but for over a year now, he had not needed to imagine. He could remember. Vividly. With no possibility of imprecision.

Last summer Snape had been cold, cold, as he’d sat in this chair and revisited the memories.

But now…. 

A dead man had said, “I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students of Hogwarts…? 

You know, better than any, how Voldemort can appeal….

I am counting on you not to fail these children now.” 

And he had nodded.

 

So now he needed to think about the worse end. 

 

The other one.

 

Her hair bright in the sunlight as she insisted, “What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! ...” 

“It was a laugh, that’s all….” And he couldn’t see, even now, why it was so evil for Avery and Mulciber to attack Mary MacDonald, while half the school laughed and admired when Black and Potter attacked him. The old injustice gnawed him. Or why she was proud of his cleverness when he invented Muffliato, but had chided him for Levicorpus. 

“I’ve finally got something those bastards won’t expect!”

“It’s cruel, Sev. It’s—humiliating. Besides, don’t expect to keep it a secret. You know they’re good at figuring out hexes once they see them—“ Not as good as I was. Not as original, that’s for sure! And that one didn’t even really hurt anyone! Even Sectumsempra—he’d known not to show her that—could be cast to do no real damage if the wizard had decent control. Or, of course, the damage could be incurable by any normal healing spell. It was all a matter of control, and he had it. Even that day, he hadn’t maimed Potter, had he? Not permanently. Only a scratch. Unlike what they’d tried to do to him the month before. 

(His tongue Tied so he could only splutter when he tried to tell her the truth—while that bastard Potter told what lies he chose.) Why hadn’t she appreciated his restraint?

It wasn’t all that different from what those bastard Marauders had been doing to him; it wasn’t any worse. Why were the Gryffindor bastards praised and their Slytherin counterparts called Dark?

But he would have given it up—Mulciber and jinxes all together—if she’d only told him. If she’d really told him. That it was a choice between them and her. Instead of telling him it was too late. “You chose your way…” 

Why did she only tell him when it was too late? 

So why not go with Mulciber and Avery? They praised him for his hexes; they showed him others even more—creative. Potions whose precision of brewing was a beauty to perform. (Not so beautiful, sometimes, testing them.) It was the brewing that was the interest—reaching through the vapors with a sure and delicate hand. The one right amount. The half stir backwards that coalesced the whole. The knowledge! And the other ideas, yeah, they were a little extreme, but not wrong. Not factually. Hell, he’d lived among Muggles, his dad had been a Muggle, he knew what they were like, what they deserved—she was never a Muggle, never, she was a witch like him.

And it wasn’t all that different, and it wasn’t any worse. 

Until it was, and by then it was too late. Far too late.

You know how he can appeal—

To cowardice. And curiosity. Bitter hatred. Bitter grief. 

To pride, his hard-earned pride at his own strength, his mind, his skill. 

To revenge. Despair. Love of knowledge. Rage. 

To his wanting to be wanted, to—belong. 

And to his certainty he could control it, control how far he’d let it go. He had never told Dumbledore that he’d invented his fake Cruciatus then. So they couldn’t force him to do the real one except when he wanted. He’d had his standards. 

Self deception. Weakness. Folly. Who could protect children from these?

Cowardice. Well. There was a potion for courage he could give the children. But it wasn’t appropriate in these circumstances; it wouldn’t help. It removed fear, resulted in recklessness—lethal here, Merlin knew! Abject terror was the correct response to that first offer. The problem had been he hadn’t been scared enough. Not in time. Not of the right things. 

No, courage wasn’t it. But what that fat and foolish boy had. Longbottom, who had made his House fools, that first year, with those 10 points. Won for trying to stop the Boy Who Lived, for trying to stop his own friends—because he thought they were doing wrong. If Lupin had ever had that courage…. No, not courage. Whatever it was. 

The boy yelling at Harry in the Ministry not to give up the prophecy. He’d heard about it later from both sides. The stories differed. 

Longbottom, who’d be Snape’s best ally next term at Hogwarts. Snape’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile at the boy’s reaction to the thought. Longbottom would be the one to restart Dumbledore’s Army, to lead resistance to Snape and the Carrows. Snape knew this as he knew the Carrows love the Cruciatus: Neville Longbottom would not consent to evil. 

If he could bottle that … and he could. If he could define it. 

A voice drifted across his mind. If you have to make a choice… between what is right and what is easy…Remember. Remember what happened… to someone who was good, and kind, and brave, because she strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Not courage. But some sort of strength. To choose rightly. As she had, seemingly without effort. No cruelty amused her. (His mismatched clothes, his dirty hair, his love of books, had all made him a target to the Muggle children. But not to her. That’s how he first knew that she was different.) 

Cowardice. Weakness.

And self-deception. Pettigrew, wanting protection—scuttling rat-like on the stairs. Lucius, sleekly seeking power—and losing all, down to his wand. Haunted in his own home by the “honor” done him. Draco, looking for respect, some twisted idea of adulthood—sobbing in the loo in his despair. Proud Rosier prostrate, kissing the hem. Himself, whose position of power would allow him to make one Muggleborn an exception. Was there anyone who had gotten what they sought in joining? Save Bella and her ilk, of course. For anyone sane—whatever you sought in joining the Dark Lord, that’s what you lost, you paid ….

So. Self deception. Was there a potion in the world to counter that? 

No. The potion for truth—only compelled one not to lie.

“Wait. Stop being so bloody rhetorical. Stop and think, you fool,” Snape muttered, straightening in his chair. His eyes narrowed. 

There was a potion for truth. And he’d seen it work to uncover—a truth apparently not previously known to the speaker. That stupid fourth-year interrogated by Umbridge—with his real serum, that time—who’d finally confessed why he’d been following Draco and hexing him. To Draco’s fury and embarrassment. Snape had smirked at both boys’ shame. So Veritaserum could work to reveal truths—that one had hidden from oneself. 

Start with that.

There was a pleasing irony to the thought that the Dark Lord had restocked the private Potions lab here with—esoteric ingredients— to enable Snape to brew whatever might be needed. His lips curled unpleasantly as he reflected on the order to brew Veritaserum for interrogations. How convenient. 

Snape settled at his lab desk, a parchment with the standard formula newly copied before him, five of its variants and a reference work on Moon potions fanned beside it. He picked up his quill.

A Moon potion still, clearly; this to be started at the dark of the moon, completed at the full. Light waxing…. Still coercive, in fact more so, but the compulsion not directed at speaking but at knowing…. He scratched out several lines tentatively. In fact, in these circumstances enjoining silence would be preferable. Certainly for students to blurt out doubts as to the desirability of joining the Death Eaters would be … inadvisable in front of the Carrows. Snape rubbed his mouth. Strychnine, perhaps, to lock the jaw? Not enough to compel silence, but enough to suggest it strongly. Here. If the formula were to be published, that could be left as an optional variant.

When Veritaserum was administered, the subject’s attention was directed by a questioner; modifying for self-interrogation—eye of eagle, here. At the center of the steps enforcing compulsion. And a counter stir each three for deeper penetration. Rue and eyebright, for vision; the herbs worked particularly well in tandem to strengthen—internal—vision. Ginger to sharpen the wits to their maximum. If one were to outthink one’s own racing mind… every advantage was needed. As he should know.

Scanning the standard formula… Moonstone, mugwort… this would be a darker potion, use the graveyard-gathered mugwort instead of the standard. And substitute pearl for the mother-of-pearl; the gem itself, formed around an unbearable irritation, pain as its core. Snape frowned. Why was he thinking this potion would be painful to take? Yet it seemed right—he’d leave it, check the effects against the final formula….

Veritaserum itself was short-lived. But this one—once the initial dose wore off, the understanding must not be buried too readily. Tenacity of effect… He pulled out Advanced Principles, reviewed potions with permanent effects. Ah. Badger gall bladder. And the powdered jawbone? That would certainly reinforce the effect—in fact, it should make the effect of the initial administration linger up to several days, and the understanding near-impossible to ignore subsequently. Not quite impossible, of course—one should never underestimate the capacity for self-deception. His brows drew down in concentration as he added those to the other changes. Hmm… he seemed to be bringing qualities of the Houses to this formula. So what of Gryffindor? Not the aspect of the sun—the steady glow, but rather lightning—sudden illumination. The lion’s claw, not blood or spleen. The quill scratched busily.

He sat back, stretched, and reviewed his work. This potion should function to enforce a general tearing-down of self-deceptive mental structures, yes. A pity they hadn’t had it to use on Cornelius Fudge back then…. Could he modify it further to —direct the inquiry, as it were? After the potion clarified, perhaps… Belladonna, that poison that fixed the eyes? Fixing the attention on a specific issue? He snorted as he considered the potion’s possible use as an anaphrodisiac. In this case, though, to direct attention to the question of joining Voldemort. If only he could get a few drops of the Dark Lord’s blood! He smiled in grim amusement at the thought. “My Lord, you know I wish only to serve you. May I take some of your blood for a potion? Three drops should suffice….” 

But wait… he unfastened his cuff and regarded his Dark Mark through narrowed eyes. The Mark—his flesh, but the Dark Lord’s essence—actually an ideal combination, if he could use it without detection. Could he take it without alerting the Dark Lord? His eyes hooded, he probed delicately with wand and mind. Yes, with the silver knife—it was his finger and will on the Mark that made it call. So for the final brewing at the full moon, he would expose the potion to moonlight and add belladonna and flesh from his Mark. He grimaced, noting that finishing the potion would now be dependent on a cloudless night. It could be held in a Stasis Charm if need be until the next full moon, but it would be strongest when brewed in one cycle. Not to be helped.

He made his final notes. General formula, with or without discouragement from speaking, how to direct the self-interrogation to a specified area of concern. Only the most skilled could use that last; selecting the proper activating ingredient would be a delicate task. A warning to that effect…. It was certain that most potential users would not have access to the activating ingredient he’d use. But as a general principle… he could see other applications. And the undirected formula would still prove useful—at least for so long as wizards lie to themselves as well as to others. 

Snape snorted. For eternity, then. A gift to humanity, he’d created.

He tapped the parchment decisively with his wand; his scratchings organized themselves neatly into formula and variations. Then he tapped it again, erasing the parchment to all eyes but his. He doubted any Death Eaters could even appreciate its application, but no reason to take chances. The apparently blank parchment went back in his stack. He’d review it after a day to see if any other improvements suggested themselves. 

Now time to prepare his brewing for the Dark Lord. Today was the Nullo Fortitudo. Did he dare weaken the batch? No, too easily detected—this was hardly Umbridge. His best work, then, however he loathed it.

Nullo Fortitudo. Weakening the will, making a victim easier to break with torture or the Imperius. Fortitudo, its reverse. Was that Longbottom’s secret? Yet he remembered the boy quaking with terror under the mildest of tongue-lashings. No defiance, no defense. Surely fortitude wasn’t the quality, no more than bravery. Yet… Snape hadn’t seen the boy defying Death Eaters or his friends. Maybe he’d been shaking with terror then, too? Neither without fear, nor trying to seem so, just doing what he saw to be right. Almost invisibly. Clarity of—moral vision?—Snape’s lips sneered at words he’d never speak—and the will to act on that, not on one’s fears? One’s feelings? (His contempt at Gryffindors playing the hero, being brave for show, for their own vainglory.) Fortitudo, but—directed. As his new Veritaserum was directed. First to see, and then to will, and then that will informing action.

His hands moved carefully through the brewing as he thought.


	3. Charity's Thesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape and Phineas Black scheme to remove Slytherin House from Riddle’s influence.

_How many Slytherins does it take to clean a cauldron?  
  
Three.  
  
One to clean the cauldron and one to confuse the issue.  
  
With a smirk of apology to Steven J. Brust, Yendi. He stole it before me._  
  
Courtesy to the dead demanded that Snape read Charity’s last publication, but it was a deep disappointment to him. Incoherence in a _Daily Prophet_ article was not unexpected. However, as nearly as Snape could tell, Charity’s research itself was without coherence. Snape wished that he could have thought better of her last work. She seemed to have had no sense of academic rigor, to have strung together mere anecdotes to make her point. The point itself was interesting, even debatable (Snape smirked sourly as he considered what the debate would sound like it in his own House), but it was unsupported, so far as he could see, by solid evidence.  
  
Of course, considered as propaganda rather than research, her thesis was of great interest and obvious utility.  
  
And so, if one thought of it, was its converse.  
  
What was the _function_ of promoting pureblood bigotry, beyond the obvious? Snape’s eyes narrowed.  
  
  
“I killed you, Albus Dumbledore,” Snape stated quietly. He endured the touch of the dust-jinx; it dissipated when he strode through it. He’d already faced Dumbledore’s portrait—what did Mad-Eye expect? That he’d flee gibbering from a semblance? He re-gathered the Disillusionment around him and cast a quick Revelo—Grimmauld Place was deserted, as he’d expected. Snape ghosted upstairs and paused, a prey to temptation. After a moment Severus entered Black’s room. Soon enough the dark man found what he’d sought—never prized by Black sufficiently, but still kept amidst the trash.  
  
No time for this. No time. A waste, utterly.   
  
Snape returned to his task. He cleansed his face and composed himself for combat.   
  
The portrait was in the room that Harry Potter had used.   
  
“Headmaster Black!” Snape tapped the frame thrice with his wand—a certain summons, with that title.  
  
Phineas strolled into view and settled himself unhurriedly. He regarded his summoner with a touch of disdain.   
  
“Ah, Phineas, thank you for your time. I have some information to pass to Dumbledore.” Quickly Snape reviewed what he knew and guessed of the Dark Lord’s plans; Dumbledore could be trusted to decide what could in turn be passed on to the Order through Minerva. Snape concluded that business and turned to his next concern.  
  
“Now, Headmaster Black, I wish to consult with you on a matter concerning our House.”  
  
The green-clad figure stretched elaborately, pretending to indifference. “Concerning just our House? What, not your impending Headmastership?”  
  
“I don’t claim it doesn’t touch on that… but I need here the reactions of a Slytherin to a most interesting piece of research in which Hogwarts’ former Muggle Studies teacher was engaged.”  
  
Phineas Nigellus Black, Pureblood, raised supercilious brows at the suggestion that anyone associated with Muggle Studies could possibly produce research of interest.  
  
Confident that he had Black’s full attention, Snape began.   
  
“Charity Burbage started with the sad observation that many of the families from Nature’s Nobility have died out or seem to be in the process of doing so… the Founders, the Gaunts, the Blacks …” Snape bowed politely to the portrait.   
  
“She further observed that some of the families which have adhered most scrupulously to refusing to mate with anyone tainted with Muggle blood have developed a tendency—well, shall we say that some of their scions are decidedly not without apparent taint themselves. Dear Bellatrix and her husband—the Carrows—there are many cases that come immediately to mind among my, ah, personal acquaintance, though Charity was too—charitable—to mention names. Or the _Prophet_ too frightened to print them, of course.   
  
“Next she lists the—also surprising—number of powerful witches and wizards of the last few generations who are half-bloods. Dumbledore, of course,” ticking people off on long fingers. “His counterpart in the French Résistance, Mathilde Thomeret, as well as Vincenzio, Noether, Blum on the Continent; Kingsley and Tonks in the current Order of the Phoenix. Our esteemed ‘Chosen One’, of course… and many more; indeed, Charity drags up that old rumor that Grindelwald himself was quarter-Muggle….  
  
“Charity does not mention the rumor that has been prevalent in Death Eater circles since the affair at the Ministry that Harry Potter accused the Dark Lord himself of being a half-blood…. Bellatrix can be so indiscreet… Do you know, Phineas, if that chances to be true?”  
  
“He is a half-blood named Tom Riddle, son of one of the last scions of Salazer Slytherin and a Muggle—not even a Mudblood! Dumbledore and Potter held a number of tedious conferences on the whole matter. I remember Riddle; he seemed a proper Slytherin. Head Boy, in his day—I thought he’d do credit to our House. Instead… I suppose you could call it “greatness” of a sort.”  
  
Snape’s eyebrows lifted. “The Dark Lord in truth a half-blood? How convenient. It’s always so—ah—refreshing when the truth chances to serve one’s purpose.”   
  
He returned his attention to Phineas. “The point Charity Burbage wished to establish was that matings between pureblood s and Muggles or Muggle-borns were desirable rather than the reverse. She claimed that half-bloods were likely to inherit greater powers as a result. She appealed to the above genealogical information and to some Muggle concept called ‘hybrid vigor’. She hinted further that inbreeding among some pureblood families had reached a dangerous level, likely to produce higher than average n0umbers of scions with physical, moral, or magical weakness or deformity.”  
  
He stepped back a half pace and observed Black’s reaction with satisfaction. The usually suave portrait was so incensed as to be nearly incoherent—besides having turned a shade of puce that did not accord well with his green and silver robes. “Obscene… Disgusting!” were the most frequently recurring words.  
  
Snape cut Black off with a lazy wave. “Personally I find the idea—flattering. Though I am hurt to have been excluded from Charity’s list of, ah, notable half-bloods. However, we need not consider this thesis on its merits, but rather examine some of its more—interesting—implications. Ways that this idea might be used,” a finger caressed a thin lip, consideringly.  
  
“Or, to be more precise, Black, ways in which it might have been used.”  
  
Phineas Black’s spluttering cut off at the hint of machinations. The portrait’s color slowly returned to its normal pallor as Black folded his arms. Two Slytherins, painted and living, regarded each other with identical expressions of sardonic interest.   
  
Snape half closed his eyes and spoke, his voice soft, “I don’t believe that adequate attention has been paid to the longer term implications of the, ah, combination of ambitions of one of our more prominent House members. Consider, Phineas, that we have a wizard, a Slytherin, who seriously aspires both to complete control of Great Britain’s Wizarding community and to personal immortality. Obviously he needs to consider how best to maintain that control in perpetuity. What will he wish to be true of the descendants of both his foes and his followers?”  
  
No one, in life or since, had heard Phineas Black swear. He had always maintained that the custom betrayed a lamentable lack of facility with language. It seemed, however, that he now felt he required a supplemental vocabulary.  
  
Snape listened with courteous attention for a minute or so. Certainly some of Black’s more eloquent expressions deserved to be remembered in case of later need. Snape finally interrupted, “We have not established the truth of this thesis—but the case can be made. Certainly for the Dark Lord, perhaps also for Grindelwald, who like him pursued immortality and espoused a pureblood ideology. If Burbage’s thesis were true—or credited, whether false or true—preventing pureblood -Muggle interbreeding follows logically. A quest for both ultimate power and immortality implies that one should wish to weaken the threat posed by succeeding generations. That a half-blood should wish to push pureblood supremacy certainly raises questions. This is a possible answer, which cannot be excluded on the facts we have. And it’s an answer with interesting implications for the, ah, morale of our House, if it should chance to be uncovered.”  
  
“Interesting implications, indeed.” Black’s portrait had started smiling. It was not a pleasant smile.  
  
“In fact the Dark Lord himself—in the presence of Draco Malfoy—killed Professor Burbage possibly in retribution for her having published a popular article on this research. His final accusation before murdering her was, I quote, ‘She would have us all mate with Muggles…’”  
  
“Injudicious to have emphasized that,” Black murmured, painted eyes alight with malice.  
  
“Indeed,” smirked Snape, caressing his upper lip again. “Now, it was perhaps also injudicious for the Dark Lord to insist on appending students’ Blood status to their personal files.” He paused to smile. “It allows for interesting comparisons. As prospective Headmaster, I’ve obtained the updated lists. Of the twenty Slytherins who will most have attracted their compatriot’s attention _au fait de pouvoir_ , twelve are listed as half-bloods—three of whom had previously succeeded in keeping their blood status secret. This is almost reversed from the proportion of half-bloods in the general Slytherin student body, so it’s nicely in line with Professor Burbage’s thesis."  
  
Phineas interrupted here. “One third of Slytherins are now half-bloods? And three-fifths of the most powerful?”  
  
Snape raised his eyebrows. “The Sorting Hat selects primarily for appetite for greatness, after all. I do point out that we would never have known the proportion until the Dark Lord insisted on tracking it—since Slytherins from the ah, wrong, background quickly learn to hide the fact. As I did. I did note your surprise, Phineas, at my blood status…. Courteous of you to try to hide your reaction.”  
  
Black declined to pick up this gauntlet, responding instead, “A point Dumbledore once made to the Potter brat, Severus, that might advantageously be introduced in this context: there were two boys who fulfilled the initial conditions of the Prophecy, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named unhesitatingly assumed the threat was from the half-blood, not the pureblood.”  
  
“Longbottom versus Potter, yes, I remember—and all of the returning students can contrast the two themselves. How, er, useful. To turn to strategic considerations: I assume you agree, that what one works out for oneself is more convincing than what one is told. So the impact will be greatest if a student or students were to discover clues to a closely guarded secret?”  
  
Phineas’s portrait waved a hand: that’s obvious.  
  
Snape’s eyes narrowed. “What is your judgment—is it best to have it be discovered by one of the half-bloods, or would it be more unassailable if done by a pureblood? Malfoy wouldn’t convey it to the others if he thought of it, but several of the brightest ones would. Especially if they truly decided they, and their parents, and their grandparents, had all been manipulated by the Dark Lord.”  
  
Phineas steepled his fingers, but hesitated. “A half-blood—there’s the problem that purebloods might suspect him of coming up with the idea to promote his own agenda. A pureblood —that he might suppress it.”  
  
Snape thought of his serum against self-deception. It should be ready for testing soon. If it worked as anticipated, it might be helpful countering this problem among the purebloods....  
  
Phineas broke in on his reflections. “Severus—how if you arranged for several students to get pieces and put it together? Among the current students, are there any—close allies? In particular, where one is pureblood and one not?”  
  
Snape thought. “Nelson and the younger Parkinson. They’ll be Fifth Years now. If I remember, Nelson’s mother is Muggle, Parkinson is loyal to her, and both are unusually proficient, even by our House’s, ah, exacting standards, at scenting secrets.”  
  
“Those ones. Yes, Dumbledore has interviewed them. I believe to mutual … dissatisfaction.” Phineas would of course pay close attention to any disciplinary proceedings in the Headmaster’s Office involving their House. Interesting and unusual that Dumbledore had found it worth while to step in himself rather than calling whatever matter required discipline to Severus’s attention. Even more interesting that something of that magnitude had escaped his attention. He should review the Headmaster’s files on them once he had access.  
  
To his own knowledge, those two were the only ones to have discovered Potter’s “Remedial Potions Lessons”—discounting Draco’s purely accidental intrusion. And they had had the impertinence to hint they didn’t believe the cover story. They’d even spotted the Pensieve. It had taken several detentions to teach them the virtues of discretion. Or at least, of silence. Snape nodded to himself. Yes, that pair would be a good choice.   
  
If he banned that issue of the _Prophet_ (remembering how successful Umbridge had been in disseminating Potter’s interview in the _Quibbler_ ) … Parkinson would harass her sister once given a hint that Malfoy knew something about Burbage’s death… Nelson could be given Dumbledore’s information on Riddle….   
  
Where would Nelson and Parkinson think to look outside the standard work areas for the overlooked research notes of a teacher they’d almost certainly never taken...? He considered what he’d seen of their methods.  
  
He could sprinkle corroborating evidence in the way of various of their friends, just to spread the work—and word— out. The class lists showing the Slytherin Head’s assessments, for instance, were always highly sought after, and they now included Blood status. Snape started plotting how and where to plant evidence. He nodded formally to Black’s portrait and prepared to take his leave.  
  
“Thank you for your assistance in this matter, Headmaster.”   
  
The portrait replied dryly, “I should be most pleased to be of further assistance, should you require it. Headmaster.”  
  
Snape jerked a little. “The title is a trifle premature. Due to—publicity concerns—I shall not be publicly confirmed in the office until just before term starts. In fact, I believe, ah, immediately before. The plan is to install the Carrows and myself physically a fortnight or so prior to that…. Ah. It would be as well if there were an extensive, but not publicized, search for Professor Burbage’s true research notes, and if those notes were to be secured in the Headmaster’s office.”  
  
“I imagine even a Gryffindor like McGonagall should be competent to perform a basic search of that nature if Dumbledore requested it—though I should recommend that you repeat the search yourself once you’re physically present.”  
  
“I intend to. I leave the preliminary search for you to arrange, then, Headmaster Black. Good day.”  
  
“Good day. Headmaster.”  
  
Snape slipped from the house and Disapparated, revolving his plans.  
  
The essential idea to convey was that Burbage was killed to suppress her subversive research. Yes, he should arrange a public cleansing of the library, her office and her classroom to emphasize this. Should he wait until term started, or would it be better to do it before and let the students discover this and speculate? He could perform a desperate-looking rummage immediately after his own arrival….   
  
Could he manipulate the Dark Lord into ordering such? Risky… but doing it on his own initiative was more so, as the Dark Lord discouraged initiative. He could inquire about preparing for the new Muggle Studies curriculum, perhaps…. Even if the Dark Lord did not believe Charity’s thesis, had never planned to use pureblood inbreeding to weaken potential future rivals, Charity’s ideas were offensive enough to Death Eater ideology that Snape should be able to—coax—the Dark Lord into ordering him to eradicate her research. And then Snape could make it look like the rest were true.   
  
Snape smiled.   
  
This could be done.  
  
Nothing— _nothing_ —would more permanently alienate the House of Slytherin than the thought of having been manipulated to their own detriment—for fifty years.  
  
 _I couldn’t save you, Charity. But I’ll use your death against your killer._  
  
  
  
---  
  
 


	4. House Rivalries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape plots how to avert Riddle’s attempted seduction of children of various houses.

  
_These words are dedicated to those who survived_  
because life is a wilderness and they were savage  
because life is an awakening and they were alert  
because life is a flowering and they blossomed  
because life is a struggle and they struggled  
because life is a gift and they were free to accept it  
Irena Klepfisz, “Bashert” 

Snape stirred uneasily in the dingy armchair, a cold cup of tea at his elbow. He stared at the barred rectangle dimly admitting the waxing moonlight. He preferred problems that he knew how to approach, however dangerous or difficult that approach might be.

Lighting the candles would not help to illuminate this problem.

He knew how to be Head of Slytherin, but by no stretch of the imagination how to be Headmaster of the whole school. The Dark Lord’s appointee could hardly be considered a valid Headmaster, of course. But if he was not, no one was; the children would have no one. He had to try being Head for all.

Standing between their lives and the Dark Lord, yes; he had some ideas how to do that. But Dumbledore seemed to think he should do more. For his Slytherins, he thought his scheme would work to prevent commitment by those whose families weren’t already Death Eaters. For the children of supporters… Well, he hadn’t enjoyed notable success with Draco, had he? He’d helped keep the boy from outright murder. But the expression on the boy’s face watching Charity—Draco’s second murder, now, to witness. He supposed that the boy’s horror showed that the boy still had a soul. Unfortunately the Dark Lord had noticed too, and would be pushing.

For his other Slytherins…. Snape’s hands clenched.

The contingency Dumbledore feared that the Carrows would force the students to practice Unforgivable Curses, was almost certain to occur. Even those determined not to join the Death Eaters would go along with being trained to some extent. There might be incompetence, but not likely resistance past that. What would that do to their souls?

He could stop the very worst, no more.

And what could he do at all for the other students? The gallant Gryffindors—his mouth twisted sourly—would be largely protected by their hatred of all things Slytherin. The greater danger for them would be recklessness; he’d have to keep a firm hand on them to keep them from passing the line of what he could get the Dark Lord to overlook. Collective punishment, perhaps; yes, children who’d applaud themselves for being “brave at heart” for foolishly courting punishment would stop at bringing it on their fellows. That was the theory behind House points and hourglasses. If he made the point clearly enough to McGonagall, she could handle the problem as a matter of internal House discipline. Now that would be a pleasant conversation.

Indeed, all of his conversations with former colleagues would be pleasant. Could he be sure they would stay? To protect the students, surely…. If he made it clear that any who left would be replaced with another Death Eater. With Bellatrix. That should work; it certainly would with him. That would be a good stick; now what to use for a carrot? Could he say that any discipline handled internally could be kept from the Carrows? No, he couldn’t promise that. The Dark Lord had already expressed his appreciation of Umbridge’s reign. Could he hint that he would turn a blind eye? He’d been among the more—outspoken—critics of the Inquisitorial Squad, despite that his own House furnished most of them. But as Headmaster, would he not be expected to want to grab all the power to himself? Would his colleagues expect him to have been jealous of his own prerogatives when he was subordinate, but eager to snatch them from others when he was in power? Almost certainly, yes, he would be seen that way.

But—he was also known for pragmatism. Could he convey that in the interests of the smooth running of the school he was willing to honor traditional House Head perquisites in despite of the Dark Lord’s orders? He could convincingly assert that he prefer his tenure not resemble Umbridge’s!

A dangerous game, but what part of this wasn’t? That would also establish that however much his colleagues hated him, any replacement chosen by the Dark Lord would infallibly be worse. Yes, that would be a motive that would be comprehensible to all sides—purchasing limited cooperation with limited bending of the Dark Lord’s rules in favor of Hogwarts tradition.

Would he be killed if caught? That might make the risk not worth it. If the Dark Lord would listen, he could certainly make a case—that he was protecting the Dark Lord’s asset from assassination, for instance. He might get off with torture. But if it came out at the wrong time, death was almost assured.

It might be better to approach the Dark Lord in advance. He could suggest that his takeover would go more smoothly if he had something unique—his respect for Hogwarts traditions—to offer. And any dispensations could be revoked at any time were the Dark Lord dissatisfied with the results. Letting neither his old or new colleagues be aware Snape had been given some, ah, discretion would appeal to the Dark Lord’s penchant for lying to all parties. Indeed, it would be very like the Dark Lord to agree, then to Cruciate him publicly for “disobedience”—a little surprise reward for excess initiative. That would please the Dark Lord to plan; probably his safest option.

Hufflepuff, now … Oddly, if recklessness became an issue, collective punishment wouldn’t work; the whole House would accept the punishment to support one student if so required. Hufflepuffs tended to keep their heads down, though. How would they respond to the authority of teachers asking them to perform Unforgiveables? His Slytherins would be clever enough to fake incompetence if they chose; most of the Hufflepuffs would be disgusted enough to make the incompetence real.

If he were to engineer widespread failures in the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies classes, how would the Carrows react—and the Dark Lord, when he learned? How much covert resistance could he allow without risking the children’s safety?

It was much easier—though still terrifying—when he had only thought himself responsible for protecting the children from torture and death. Now he was supposed to encourage them to defy the Dark Lord—and still ensure they avoid torture and death. How could anyone do that? Snape pushed the heel of his hand wearily against his eyes.

It was all deception. At that he was a master. Deception was a dance, and for a dance one had a partner. This was just the practice without music. Snape reminded himself of the wearing hours he’d spent practicing to meet the Dark Mark’s summons. He remembered Dumbledore thrusting into his mind as he practiced giving the truths that most could serve them, remembered waking himself from sleep to blurt out edited answers. But then when he Apparated to the graveyard, the words and gestures were just—given—by the flickers in the Dark Lord’s face, by the ways he phrased his accusations. People mostly deceived themselves; he need only to partner them. But this time he would be shielding the thoughts of others.

He would be Master of Misdirection—new position for the school!—and he knew what the Dark Lord would look for.

Children cowed, sullen, defiant: broken or ready to break.

So that’s what he would see. Snape just had to arrange the proper illusions in support.

Hufflepuffs were usually dismissed. That’s what he would see there: dunderheads, Muggle-lovers, near-Squibs, not worth the effort. Snape smiled coldly, remembering how long it had taken him as a new teacher to see past his own House prejudices. The Dark Lord didn’t have that background, nor any other Death Eater. His line here would be to discourage the Dark Lord from taking them seriously: Hufflepuff, a joke.

If the Dark Lord did try to court or coerce them, how would he do it? Coercion, certainly. Do this or I’ll hurt your friends. Cruder than the Dark Lord’s favorite stratagems, but undeniably effective. He might get them to do things they wouldn’t forgive themselves for, by threatening torture to other House members. What could engage the ‘puff’s stubborn loyalty first, so that any acquiescence to the Dark Lord after would be an unbearable betrayal?

The Muggle-born. That was easy.

Snape knew, as many did not—or at least did not let themselves admit—what the Dark Lord intended of this “Muggle-born Registration”. Hufflepuff had always been the House most receptive to the Muggle-born—it seemed that many Muggles actually groomed their children for teamwork, an odd thought—and if they knew their members’ lives were threatened—lesser threats would fall away. How to use that? How to get in there first?

Snape understood without any crude, verbal, directive that he was expected to run things smoothly at Hogwarts—to make sure that faculty’s and students’ noses weren’t rubbed into less-pleasant facts until it was too late to contest them. No harm would be done the Muggle-born, oh dear no, they would just be excluded. Certainly they wouldn’t be murdered, oh dear no. Now it seemed he must make sure that some rubbing in of noses was done, if not apparently by him.

No. Noses be damned. He would make sure some _rescuing_ was done. If the ‘puffs had some Muggle-born under their direct protection—he would defy the Dark Lord to corrupt them with lesser threats. Badgers were unshakably brave—without Gryffindor display! — when protecting their own. But where the hell could he have them put them? And how to ensure the Badgers rescue them in the first place? Well. There were other adults who would help rescue children if they had somewhere safe to stash them, and the Order would undoubtedly know who. He need only ensure that the Hufflepuffs, for their own protection, be involved.

A neatly Slytherin scheme, multi-faceted, could he but pull it off: Snape had Muggle-born students in danger of death, Hufflepuff purebloods in danger of the Dark Lord’s courting. Each could save the other—could Snape but find the right strings to pull.

To have a continuing effect upon the Hufflepuffs, the Muggle-born children must stay at Hogwarts, their lives contingent on the ‘puff’s loyalty. Otherwise a threat by the Dark Lord to hurt other House members would have effect. It would be impossible to hide them in the Castle, not for months or years. The Forbidden Forest, then: camped out, dependent on children in the castle for supplies.

He was thinking about children, rescuers and rescued. The centaurs don’t harm foals. And no adults could get near the centaur camp without their leave. If Hufflepuff children smuggled rescued Muggle-born children to the centaur camp… and smuggled supplies to assist them… that would both fulfill the conditions and give the children fierce adult—competent!—protectors.

But for him to manipulate the centaurs could be occasion for war. That “foals” turned to them for protection was one thing; Centaurs were more civilized than Wizards about the young of any species. But adult planning or participation would turn it into a treaty violation. He’d be balancing the blood of the Muggle-borns he might save against possible war.

Would his taking personal responsibility avert that? He’d trespassed on the centaurs looking for lost students; Hagrid had visited with permission, Dumbledore, Umbridge…. Even Umbridge’s trespass was treated as a personal crime, not as an act of war—despite her claiming Ministerial authority. He was planning to make deliberate use of the Centaurs, true, a much worse affront. But if he made it clear he was acting only on his own recognizance, with no backing or knowledge of any other adult wizards…. That should avert the danger of war.

He would need to write a formal confession to the centaurs, to be hidden until after this war. Once his allegiance became known his collusion with the children would have to be suspected. He would have to ensure it was taken as a purely private matter of his own. Of course, if he survived to give them the letter in person, the treaty stipulated that they might demand his blood…. Snape snorted in dark amusement at the thought of that end to his misspent career. His responsibility as Headmaster.

More things to check when he had access to the Hogwarts library: the specific terms of the treaties, and Centaur psychology. A pity he couldn’t consult Hagrid—the half-giant had the best intuitive grasp of other species’ thinking that he knew. Could he consult with Dumbledore?

Portraits had no legal responsibility, but the centaurs might feel Dumbledore should have contacted other living wizards to prevent his scheme. Perhaps… until he could check that possibility… he should just tell Dumbledore to tell the Order there was a safe haven for Muggleborns on the Hogwarts grounds. Was Derwent the most recent Hufflepuff Headmaster? That would be the ideal go-between between Dumbledore, contacting the Order, and Hufflepuff House. All of that could be arranged between the portraits.

Wait. Once his allegiance became known?—Snape backtracked in astonishment. Surely long ago he had demanded a promise that his—loyalties—remain concealed…? The safer course here would be to stay hidden. If the Centaurs continued to think only the children plotted, there would be no offense, so no confession.

But the letter should still be written as insurance. He would leave it to be found.

Ravenclaw, now. Solidarity would not be their weakness. Intellectual pride, rather—like the pride of one bright boy who thought he should be able to study whatever he wanted, who thought it was clever to invent curses, who thought his new friends offered freedom from intellectual restraints.

So, pre-empt that. Offer the Ravenclaws a … research project, more compelling than anything the Carrows might provide. And, fortunately, the Carrows would not provide temptation to persons of intellect. That’s partly why he’d picked them.

Well, he had a research project to hand, didn’t he? Charity’s thesis. His Slytherins would care whether Riddle had used it. The Ravenclaws would care whether it was true and whether it could be proved. Another multi-faceted scheme. Show the trailing edge of a mystery—let the Slytherins coil around the political implications, the Ravenclaws hook the intellectual bait. Snape’s lips twitched.

The two Houses working together… well, Salazar and Rowena had been the brightest of the Founders, the most foresighted…. The least tolerant of Muggle-borns, in fact, because they lived in a time when Muggles were a serious danger to Wizards. Granger had done well to Sort elsewhere. But Ravenclaws would take pride in readjusting their ideas if proved wrong; there was the difference. If proved wrong.

Could he risk this for his Slytherins? What if the Pureblood prejudice—were proved right?

He would not allow hopes for Ravenclaw to harm his House. If need be, he’d come up with another scheme for their benefit. And then have to chivvy them away from the clues he was dropping for his Snakes—no, best if he could use one scheme for both. But was it safe for his children?

He set his mind to drive back through a quarter century of direct experience. Students he’d competed against—worked with—taught. Pureblood, Muggle-born, Halfblood. Head Boys, Head Girls. Prefects. Awards. Outstanding O.W.L.S. A Slytherin could appreciate better than any the complex dance between raw talent—skills learned—family—other backing—public perception—and rewards. Oh, yes, the relationship between desserts and rewards was never straightforward ….

He could at least state unequivocally that his experience of over two decades showed that Purebloods were not more deserving of honor. And so could any Slytherin who chose to look. Whether it were true that mixed blood were an actual advantage—he could leave to the ‘claws to debate.

Interminably.

Keeping them harmlessly occupied.

While Snape persuaded the Dark Lord that they—that all of his children— were broken or ready to break. Harmless, already corrupted, already taken.

Misdirection. The specialty of the House.

As it were.


	5. Breath and Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One advantage of being a cynic is that a serum against self-deception could have no effect.
> 
> Snape tests his new potion, and this hypothesis.

  
_“…the ice that was bound about my heart turned to breath and water and with anguish came forth from my breast by mouth and eyes.”  
Dante, Purgatorio, Canto 30, translation John Sinclair. _

 

Snape always tested his new formulations himself—except the ones designed to be lethal, of course. He couldn’t understand why any Potions Master would avoid that elementary precaution. However good one’s grasp of theory, the potion’s effects should be ascertained directly, by the one who could fix it, if the potioneer had made a mistake. Major changes, even, to existing formulae, should be tested before use. This was elementary lab procedure, in his view. _Anything_ not designed to be lethal—one of the reasons why he’d always designed antidotes, even when he was working in truth for the Dark Lord. A few times he’d quaffed the potion followed instantly by its antidote, and judged on the few seconds’ action. He always tested himself.

However, these two potions were unlikely to have much effect on him. The problem, in fact, was that he might not be able to evaluate the effects properly. His revised Fortitudo? Lack of courage and of will were the only vices, surely, of which he couldn’t accuse himself. And self-deception? Now? The one advantage to being a cynic in Snape’s position was that he had no foolish hopes left, no delusions of receiving grace or gentleness or respect, no thoughts of nobility to cling to. A potion against self-deception could surely find no illusions to shatter.

Snape tested the revised Fortitudo, quaffing the full measure. His head tilted thoughtfully. He got up, moved around the lab, and explored how his body and mind moved under this influence. His lips curled. Yes, for sentimentalists, for children, it should prove useful. He made a mental note: administer this as a baseline as needed. Switch to the standard Inspiritus after a particularly egregious example of defiance, such as Longbottom might be counted on to provide, or the youngest Weasley.

Tomorrow night, at the full moon, he could finish his new truth potion. Add his flesh and the belladonna and expose it to the light. Tonight—he had no more brewing, no summons. As much relief as Snape dared dream of. He warded the lab carefully and went up to the barren, dirty kitchen for some tea.

Full moon. No clouds. Done.

It would be bitter. He should test if it could be administered with Tongue-Numbing Drops. Odd, how one never could tell if they would interfere with a potion’s action from theoretical considerations alone. He’d need two testings, then, tonight without, then later with. Verify everything. If he could administer it with Tongue-Numbing, he could slip it into the pumpkin juice; otherwise he’d have to put it in coffee for the bitterness, few children drank coffee, how could he administer it universally….

Snape noticed his mind racing, trying, it seemed, to delay the moment of testing. His chin lifted sharply. A curious effect, and not even tasted.

Three drops. Done.

As bitter as he’d expected. Now to wait for the effects,  
if he could notice them.

Nothing. He’d go to bed. The one advantage to being a cynic.

 

She stands before the portal, as she has stood before.

Robed in chrysoprase with silver ribbons, unbound hair blazing.

She is beautiful as the moon in his House colors.

His heart pleads, _If you’d Sorted into my House, it would all have been different._

_Lily,_ his lips shape. He takes an involuntary step forward. Then he meets her eyes.

Slytherin eyes. Green. Coolly assessing.

That’s what he’s always made himself forget. That had been when he’d gotten frightened.

_That day…_

He had lashed out in his humiliation, in his fury, shame, and pain. He couldn’t hurt Potter any way that mattered—so he’d hit at her. And for a moment it had worked—he’d seen her jerk in her first hurt.

Then she’d gone cold.

He’d hated himself as he shouted it; he knew she’d be angered and hurt. But she’d forgive him—she’d have to understand—she had always known his heart. She would know he hadn’t meant it. After her anger cooled, she’d know.

Instead she blinked. Looked at him as though seeing him newly. Emerald eyes narrowed. Assessingly.

Even her screaming at Potter in fury hadn’t eased his dread.

_You’re as bad as he is…._

He’d been too cold to speak, to even move. Standing dumbly as Lily left them, as Potter finished his fun. No longer fighting. Barely hearing the taunts and laughter. Too cold with terror.

_I’m sorry!_

_Save your breath._

He’d been expecting it. But he’d had to try.

His Lily. In green and silver. Beautiful as the moon.

He has to try.

_“I’m sorry! I never meant to kill you. I never meant—“_

He is sobbing at her feet now. Yet again.

This is a dream.

This is just another dream.

Like the ones of her screaming. Like the dreams of green light. Like the ones of her sobbing at his betrayal. Of her screaming in fury. Of her flinging green light at him. Of Potter doing it, while she smiles. Of his getting there in time to save her. Again and again.

He’s never dreamed of her coldly calculating. Like that night.

He has to try.

He lifts his face, tears streaming.

“I tried . . . when I knew it was you! You know I tried! I went to Dumbledore—I did everything—I risked my life and worse. I even told him—I told him—if Potter had listened to me you’d have been safe! I begged Dumbledore to be the Keeper, I begged him! I’d found out there was a traitor, that he was one of Potter’s friends! Potter was too arrogant to believe he might be mistaken in them. If he’d listened to me you would have been safe! And I didn’t—didn’t ask anything—not even the credit… I would have saved him too—but he wouldn’t listen!

“I tried, Lily, I would have done anything, anything, I did try—“

His words splash like water against her calm.

“I’m not interested.” She floats pale before his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” an agonized whisper.

“You don’t learn, do you, Sev?”

He breaks at the lost nickname, starts screaming through his sobs. “I never meant to kill you!”

Her voice is without pity. “You meant to kill.”

“I never meant—I didn’t—“

His throat closes. He wouldn’t say it. Not even to her.

Never actually until Dumbledore, not with his own wand.

 

Slytherin eyes glint coolly. Green and silver gleam as she crosses her arms. “You don’t learn fast, do you, Sev? You meant to kill. And it was me.”

“No…” now he’s confused. I never meant to kill you. I never would!

Her head tilts contemptuously, sending the green gaze over his head. Her voice has drained of interest.

“Lie to yourself, but not to me, Sev. You’re not a fool, or not that kind. You knew that it meant death. Some baby’s. A woman’s. A man’s. You didn’t care. Until it was me. “

She shrugs and turns.

_Some baby’s. A woman’s. A man’s._

_I didn’t care._

She is gone, leaving only the moon. A ribbon of silver against his eyes.

_I didn’t care._

_And it was you._

Only ever in dreams. Only ever in his dreams. Not even that night, in Dumbledore’s office. He knew he’d made noises, but he’d restrained himself from crying.

But now he was awake, and he couldn’t stop himself from sobbing, his face buried in his arms.

 

Hiding from the moon, which watched impassively, then left.

Green eyes haunted him all day. Green eyes glinted as he brewed poisons for his Master. Green eyes sneered at hands shaking on his death eater wand. Narrowed contemptuously when he retrieved the other, earlier one, then couldn’t use it. _Can you split your works in two, then? Voldemort’s servant. Dumbledore’s man. But either, only for wrong reasons._

They had praised him for his hexes; they had showed him others even more creative. Potions whose precision of brewing was a beauty to perform. He could learn what he wanted; he could do what he chose. He’d felt unfettered. And as for the consequences….

_You didn’t care._ No. He hadn’t.

Even when the fetters became apparent, he’d resented his loss of freedom rather than the consequences to others.

Inventing a fake Cruciatus because he wouldn’t take responsibility—for either doing it or refusing. He’d cared more for his will than for their pain. He wasn’t better than Bellatrix for that; he was worse. The madwoman wasn’t capable of appreciating that Cruciating someone was wrong. He was, and went along. Worse than the werewolf, even, going along with his Marauder pack. Joining to be accepted and for some dream of being unbridled. Indifferent to the harm he knew he’d do. Staying out of cowardice after he knew it was wrong. Leaving—only in desperation. Trying selfishly still to grasp—the one thing he’d valued most, and that he’d forfeited. Not leaving because of right. Because of greed.

His hands had been mostly clean. That had been policy, to save him for his role. And he’d pretended that it mattered.

_Lie to yourself, but not to me, Sev._

Illegal potions, which he didn’t himself administer. Hexes, which he invented and taught but didn’t throw in combat. Only a few raids back then, not the worst, just enough to commit him.

_You knew that it meant death._

Yes. He’d always known. And he’d left—because of greed. For something Voldemort wouldn’t give him. For if he’d thought he could have kept her….?

_You disgust me. You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?_

Blue eyes aflame with contempt. Dumbledore had seen the truth, then.

Emerald eyes. Aflame.

_I didn’t care._

Green eyes cooled into disdain. Slytherin eyes assessed him.

_Why should I be any different?_

Always. Whoever it was. Whoever I hurt—was always you.


	6. Potter's Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape continues to demonstrate his immunity to his own potion.

_“A very worthy person, a true lover of his county, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement…. [H]e conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads....” Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”  
  
“Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter.” Severus Snape as quoted by JKR, The Deathly   
Hallows_  
  
  
Emerald eyes glazed in death, glasses knocked askew. A thin body sprawled before him. A familiar face, hated, twisted in pain.   
  
Failed, failed, failed.  
  
Snape sat up in bed, his body shaking. The sheet twisted around his torso was soaked. He touched his throat incredulously, feeling the rawness. He had been… screaming?  
  
Only a boggart.   
  
No, a dream.  
  
The boggart had been in Defense class, when he’d incautiously gone too close. Fortunately the younger Creevey had had as advanced a case of hero-worship as his older brother; Snape had passed the boggart off as his.   
  
_Riddikulus!_  
  
But the boy was in fact going to die. Dumbledore had said so.  
  
Snape had never found a way to make that fact ridiculous.  
  
Snape shivered as his sweat dried. He stood and shrugged into a robe. No use to try Potion-making when his hands were shaking, still less to try to sleep again. He started pacing in the moonlight.  
  
He’d watched the boy so long. He remembered the beginning.  
  
Green eyes had filled with shocked surprise, then hurt; within minutes, with contemptuous rage.   
  
That hadn’t taken long—Snape at his finest.  
  
It was policy, of course. Mutual dislike must be assured. When the Dark Lord sifted thoughts later, that would be the only safety. He’d thought of the Muggle philosopher: Be what you wish to seem. They must seem to be enemies—and with the boy so like his father, that would be easy.   
  
And it was easy.   
  
It was always easy to goad Potter. It was easy to enjoy it. After so long in Potter’s power, to reverse it—what heady pleasure! The boy so like his father, but vulnerable. As Potter never had been; Severus had never touched him, not really, no matter what he’d done, what he’d tried.   
  
He’d known Potter’s magic to be mediocre in comparison with his—but Potter got the praise, and publicly appropriated Snape’s own creations. He was arrogant, attention-seeking—and he got widespread acclaim. He was a determined rule-breaker—and he got away with it, no matter what he did, while sneering at Slytherins for being sneaky.  
  
He had got her, in the end. Snape had always feared it, and he did. She was taken in.  
  
She’d been absorbed under the cloak of James’s glory. Mrs. Potter.   
  
Not even her own tombstone, not even her own name.   
  
No Gryffindors remembered her; they spoke of famous Potter.   
  
Who had gotten away with everything, and left Snape nothing.   
  
And nothing, nothing Snape had ever done, had even touched him.  
  
But the son, now, that was different. Young Potter’s eyes widened in fear. Narrowed to slits in rage. Glittered with tears, ah, that was good.  
  
Potter’s son hated him and feared him. Potter’s son went in dread of humiliation when he saw him.  
  
As he’d had Potter.  
  
This time around Potter’s gang was no avail. (Trust a Potter not to be without one!) This time three against one didn’t help. This time being a Quidditch star, showoff, playing the hero didn’t help him. Snape proved his power, his superiority, again and again.  
  
Oh, he knew what the boy was like. He was just like his father, sickeningly arrogant, stealing other people’s accomplishments, delighted to be a celebrity.   
  
That ubiquitous toast, those months after her sacrifice. He’d even had to drink it himself, or be suspected.   
  
_To Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived!_  
  
When it was she who’d saved the boy, who’d stopped the Dark Lord.   
  
Who had died to do so.   
  
Who was forgotten in Potter’s fame.   
  
She had sacrificed herself to shield him, and Potter took the credit.  
  
Snape’s stride had quickened with his rage. His robes billowed now at each turn.  
  
He was just like his father, like Potter in every way.  
  
Except the eyes, reacting. Widened. Narrowed. Glittering.  
  
Her eyes. Green. Open.   
  
Glaring at him in detention, again and again. Staring up at his in Potions. Fixing his insolently in Defense. _("You don’t need to call me sir, Professor.")_ Fixed in dread as Snape had probed the boy’s memories, found them… not quite what he’d expected, not Potter’s privileged background at all.  
  
Emerald eyes burning behind Potter’s glasses as the boy had blurted out his sole acknowledgment of Snape’s long sacrifice and protection—burning with fury, not gratitude, never gratitude from a Potter. But the boy still had said it— _"that’s your job."_  
  
It was small recompense for fifteen years of painful struggle, of playing the most damnable role of any wizard in Britain. It was small accolade for four years of unrelenting vigilance, followed by a year of treason, torture, and terror.   
  
But it was the only recognition the boy had ever offered him, and Snape had snatched it.   
  
Even Potter could see it in his face—and had broken through his guard while Snape was softened.  
  
He doubted that the boy understood why that instinctive Protego, hurling Snape’s Legilimens spell against its own caster, had caught _those_ thoughts. Why those memories, of all, had strayed to the top of Snape’s mind. Fear. Loneliness. Taunting. Bitter endurance. Brutally enforced self-reliance….   
  
Notes of congruence.   
  
How curiously satisfying it had been—to have been seen, for just one glimpse, and to have seen some trace of empathy and ability in her son.  
  
Then the boy had promptly turned and proved his willful, his deliberate, his damnable incompetence, his refusal to cut himself off from his visions, to take the urgent advice of those who knew more than he. He’d shown again the exact arrogance that had doomed Potter.   
  
_"Maybe your visions make you feel special—important?"_  
  
Oh, Snape had been so right about the boy. Snape seethed anew remembering the boy’s _triumph_ as he’d burst mentally through that door and fallen further into the Dark Lord’s trap…. Did Potter’s son ever admit to himself that he’d killed his godfather by refusing to listen to Snape?   
  
Did Potter have time to admit to himself that his arrogance, his blind trust in his friends, his refusal to listen to Snape’s desperate information, had killed his wife?   
  
Then the boy capped all by violating Snape’s trust.  
  
 _His trust? Violated?_  
  
Snape stopped pacing in shock at his own thoughts. `  
  
The boy had violated his privacy, absolutely, inexcusably.   
  
Not his trust. He’d never trusted him.  
  
Snape started pacing again more slowly, his hands clenched.  
  
Snape had always trusted Harry, exactly as he’d trusted Harry’s mother. Look at how he’d acted.  
  
If some poor sod of a teacher had been told off to teach James Occlumency, there would have been no precaution too extreme to protect his private thoughts. He would never have allowed James to suspect that Pensieves so much as existed. He’d never have allowed James to suspect, much less to see, that he was removing memories for safety. That Pensieve would have been stored under several wards and hexes, at least one of which was controlled by the Headmaster for safety…. And if, after all that, the poor sod had found reason to believe James might have figured out his teacher was safeguarding memories, he’d have started getting creative in his safety measures. He’d have assumed Potter would do all in his power to find them—and would use them to damage or humiliate a hated teacher.  
  
If he were teaching Occlumency to Lily … he’d have stored memories only against an accidental breakthrough. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to expect a deliberate invasion. Her sense of honor was so strong, he wouldn’t have even asked for her assurance not to look. He’d have removed and retrieved the memories openly; he’d have stored the Pensieve in plain sight. He’d have left her alone with it without question if a crisis required his attention—not once but twice. He’d have trusted her absolutely.  
  
As Snape had trusted the boy, whatever he had said. About him. To him. To himself.  
  
The boy had betrayed that trust.   
  
Snape jerked.  
  
Not quite true. Not quite—fair.   
  
James would have spread it through the school to complete his humiliation, or used it privately to torment him. Harry… had seemed the one tormented. As his mother would have been, were possible to imagine her doing such a thing.   
  
And… she might have, actually, if she had believed the children’s romantic fantasies about Snape’s concealing some secret weapon. She would have felt shame at the violation--as Harry had seemed ashamed.   
  
_“No… No, of course I w—”_  
  
Had Snape truly believed that a story so damaging to his dignity were to return to current gossip, there were things he could have done. He could have Obliviated the boy; he could have Tied his tongue; he could have bound the boy to his promise. But Snape had never considered any of those. He had trusted, even in his incoherent rage, in the boy’s word.   
  
If Snape looked at his own actions coldly, he’d always trusted the boy like that. Unreasonably, given their history. And Snape had expected—without reason, without realizing it—that the boy should know to trust him, while pushing the child to distrust.  
  
Snape never made the mistake of losing sight of his enemies, never, never. Not when he was a child among Muggles, not when he was a boy entering Hogwarts, naïvely imagining that other Wizarding children would be natural allies, not when he was distracted by fear or rage or the pain of the Cruciatus Curse. Never. Becoming a Death Eater, becoming a double agent, only augmented a vigilance that had been Snape’s as long as he could remember.  
  
So when Hermione set Snape on fire—when the Trio Disarmed him in the Shrieking Shack—it was because he couldn’t conceive of them acting against him, of not trusting him. He’d never thought to bind or disarm them; he was on their side. He’d not remembered they might imagine him an enemy.  
  
His rage at them, therefore, was partly—hurt—that they'd trust a werewolf, a madman, the Dark Lord’s tool, ahead of him. Over and over.  
  
He had spent nearly half his life, now, guarding the boy.   
  
Snape had played a hateful role, but a necessary one, and he’d played it well. He’d watched Lily’s child vigilantly, protected him, pushed him for excellence where others let the boy slide.  
  
( _He_ had taught the boy Expelliarmus--only to have Potter use it against him.)  
  
He’d known not to expect gratitude from the boy. He’d known that he was cultivating distrust, hatred.   
  
He had known.   
  
He kept telling himself what he had known. What had he wanted?  
  
Even after several betrayals ( _you don’t learn, do you, Sev?_ ), he’d still trusted. He’d set Sluggy up to give the boy his own Potions book. It was true, if the boy wanted to be an Auror, he’d need Sev’s shortcuts—his own talents in Potions were too—limited—to have made it through N.E.W.T.S without help. Snape couldn’t help directly, and Slughorn, well, preferred to see what students could do without assistance.  
  
That the boy would see his other research—Snape had never admitted that he’d wanted his cleverness to be known. No, not to be known in general. Snape had wanted Harry to know.   
  
Lily had admired some of his spells.  
  
Her child had admired more than he should have. The fool boy had cast Sectumsempra blindly—Snape remembered his sick shock that the boy would use _that_. But of course the child never had bothered with theory, he wouldn’t have worked out what the spell did—not like young Severus.   
  
Snape had attributed the boy’s trying the spell without understanding its effects to Gryffindor recklessness, arrogance, disregard of consequences. The fool child almost killed an enemy without even the grace of full intent—just like his godfather. Those would have been the Marauder reasons for using an unknown, untried, dangerous spell.   
  
But given how the boy’s mind worked—the reason was likely more simple: trust of the spell’s source, the boy’s unknown friend, the Half-Blood Prince.   
  
Snape had craved that trust, that admiration; he must have. Giving Potter the book had been an attempt—not to earn Harry’s admiration—to trick the boy into offering it unknowingly.  
  
Who then was the one arrogant, reckless, and careless of consequences? Harry or Snape?  
  
  
And then the last betrayal. That Harry had believed so uncritically, so immediately, in the evidence of his own eyes at Dumbledore’s death.   
  
How could he not? Snape had spent years working to ensure that the boy distrust and hate him. The boy saw him do it, saw all parties play their scripts. How could the boy not have believed? It would have been Snape’s abject failure, he’d have been tortured to death, all Dumbledore hoped to accomplish destroyed, had the boy NOT believed it. The boy had to think him traitor. Everyone had to.  
  
But somehow, somehow, Snape had been enraged that the boy believed it so readily. And then to find out... How could the child have discovered _that night_ that Snape was his parents’ betrayer?   
  
Snape sank onto a chair and huffed a laugh of despair.   
  
He had held control until then. He had herded off the Death Eaters too fast for them to think of doing more collateral damage. He had sheltered Draco. He had protected Harry yet again from the consequences of his rashness, both the danger to his soul of using Unforgiveables and the physical danger of following the Death Eaters so closely.   
  
He had held at bay his own vision of Dumbledore’s face lit by green light.   
  
He had held control even when the boy tried his own spells against him, just like his father had done.  
  
But he had broken when the boy had screamed back, “ _Kill me like you killed him, you coward._ ”  
  
Snape had cared that Harry knew.  
  
The shock of discovering that, while he absorbed that depth of hatred from the boy so like him in some ways. Self-reliant. Lonely. Angry. Enduring….  
  
So unlike, in others. Green eyes so open.  
  
And the boy’s magic so much weaker, in every way that should have counted.   
  
" _Mediocre…."_ Snape had ranted.   
  
_"Reasonably talented,"_ Dumbledore had riposted.   
  
Meaning the same thing. Talented, but not extraordinarily so. Not overwhelmingly powerful.  
  
To bring down the Dark Lord when Snape and Dumbledore could not.  
  
Harry should be smarter than he. Stronger than he. Tougher, crueler, more inventive. More slippery. More insightful. More _something_.  
  
So weak, in every way that counted. So vulnerable. Not like James at all.  
  
So… open.  
  
Like Lily.  
  
To be protected.  
  
 _What do I lack, that a boy whose talents are nothing to mine must do what I can’t?  
  
And must die to do so.  
  
And I can’t take it on myself and save you.  
  
I’ll have to watch you die.  
  
I’ll have to watch you die.  
  
I can’t save you.  
  
Riddikulus!_  
  
Snape found that he was curled around his crossed arms, rocking slightly. There was no way to banish this boggart.   
  
  
His Mark burned.   
  
Snape summoned his most useful emotions: the fury he’d felt at Harry’s distrust, the sick hatred he’d felt at learning Harry’s doom. Confusion, jealousy, decades-old rage, pain. He smoothly moved them to cover his other thoughts of the boy. Of Potter's son. Potter. Whom he hated. He arranged his mask and outer thoughts and Disapparated.  
  
Much later, wormwood and asphodel, painstakingly measured.   
  
Snape woke late the next day, his body loose and comfortable. His muscles were not clenched; no dried tears were on his face; his throat was not raw from pleading.   
  
He’d had no nightmares. Snape collected himself carefully, incredulously. He was in his own bed, whole and comfortable. His body moved easily, without pain.   
  
He’d had no nightmares.   
  
“This time with the Tongue-Numbing Drops,” Snape reminded himself.   
  
Verify everything.  
  
He watched with chill detachment the shaking of his hands as he measured out three more drops.  
  
---  
  
 


	7. Boggart and Patronus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape justifies his teaching style, and accepts a decision he's already made.

_“The gods… the gods may forgive much, to a truly penitent heart.”  
  
Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. “The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not forgive Ista, the gods may go hang themselves.”  
  
Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls _  
  
  
Just for a change, he wasn’t hallucinating green eyes. Instead the eyes haunting him were a washed out blue, round, set in a chubby face. Why was he seeing Longbottom, of all people, and feeling… uncomfortable?  
  
Snape was a good teacher, however hated. His safety record was more than twice as good as Horace’s. He’d checked. No student had ever been permanently injured in his classes. His more active monitoring kept minor accidents at a minimum—even incompetents like Longbottom, once he had their measure, could be restrained from the most dangerous mistakes. Durmstrang had had _deaths_ in Potions accidents! Beauxbatons refused to teach any formulae deemed too “dangerous” to brew: which was most of them, Snape sneered, if one truly accounted for all probable errors in brewing.   
  
The children might not like him, but by Merlin, they did learn. No one, not even the most abject failures, left his class without a firm understanding of the danger of carelessness in this field. Average students left with a good working knowledge of common potions. His O.W.L. pass rate was higher than anyone’s but Minerva’s; his high pass rate was better than hers.  
  
Moreover, any student who took proper notes got formulae for important potions better than anything published; he gave them, without fanfare, all his own improvements on standard formulae. Who’d think an ambitious Slytherin would share his life’s work for no reward? Not one student in fifty spotted that the texts’ instructions were often different from what he posted on the board; not one in a hundred, that his were better. That one, then, he knew to train as a possible Potions Master. The others, even if bright, would be cookbook potion-makers, if that, and got that training. It was a good system, subtle, to meet those very different needs. He was proud of having thought of it; as far as he knew, it was unique.  
  
“I’m a better teacher than Horace, however hated,” he silently contended to the frightened blue eyes.  
  
It was not as though he’d ever had the luxury of making himself agreeable to children. His role of not-really-reformed Death Eater had absorbed his life for all these years. He never could break character. Dumbledore had agreed. They’d spoken privately, when there’d been complaints about his harshness or unfairness. Death Eaters were unfair. Death Eaters dealt humiliation (he drew the line at physical hurt). Death Eaters were hateful. He had to be mistrusted. For ten years he’d rehearsed the part with every breath.  
  
And of course, Harry’s class was, as it were, the real opening day for his act. He was harsher and more partial in that class than he’d ever had to be. He hadn’t known about the scar acting as a linkage, but he knew the Dark Lord’s powers. Harry might some day fall into his hands, and then all Snape’s actions would be open to his view. There must be no discrepancies; there must be no mistakes. _Be what you wish to seem._ Dumbledore had agreed!  
  
Dumbledore had agreed in principle. His mild commentary on specific practices sometimes stung.)  
  
It was all justified. It was necessary, and it had worked. He could bear their hatred.  
  
So why was he … uneasy… at the thought of Longbottom?  
  
Snape’s cheeks flushed with fury as he thought of Longbottom’s boggart. Trust the Gryffindors and that bloody werewolf to continue the Marauders’ mission of ridiculing him twenty years later! Gran’s vulture hat would haunt the school for years, as his greying pants had before. But under his flare of humiliation and anger—familiar friends, from that source!—had lurked a new discomfort.   
  
What was Snape, to be someone’s worst fear?  
  
A stupid concern! Boggarts of children that age were trivial: spiders and mummies, a walking doll with blank eyes—things from private nightmares, or lifted randomly from stories.   
  
(Unless there were real fears to call forth. His mother cowering and bloody. A werewolf twisting, trying to reach him. Lily lit by a green flash. The boy dead before his eyes, protection failed—)  
  
Boggarts of children of that age were usually trivial.  
  
Longbottom’s parents were in St. Mungo’s, tortured to insanity. They didn’t recognize him, Snape had heard.  
  
And Snape seemed worse.  
  
He had never even _hurt_ the boy! The times the child had been injured in his class had always been due to his own incompetence, which Snape had only been attempting to eradicate. What would Longbottom have done if faced with what Snape had had to endure? Sarcasm left no scars; the boy should have worked harder to avoid it. Most students did.  
  
Justified, he assured himself. Necessary. He could bear his students’ hatred. They had learned what they had needed, and his mask had to be intact.  
  
Round eyes stared disbelieving.  
  
  
Snape was frightened of going to bed that night. Like a child.  
  
  
But he had no dreams that night, no dreams. Instead Snape woke to an echoing emptiness, hearing his own voice speaking dispassionately in French. In French? He listened in confusion and identified the end of that strange Muggle novel about the killer. He didn’t think in French; he translated mentally back to English. “In order for all to be complete, in order to feel myself less alone, it remains to me only to hope that there will be many spectators the day of my execution, and that they will welcome me with cries of hatred.”*  
  
Welcomed. With cries of hatred. He was hated. That’s what he wanted.  
  
Killer. Lily’s killer.   
  
To feel myself less alone.  
  
He’d made the _children_ hate him, for his needs.   
  
Snape curled in horror on his bed. He’d used the _children._  
  
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, not able to move past the thought. He finally got up stiffly and performed his morning ablutions. He winced at the bright light outside his windows when he drew the curtains. The light downstairs was dimmer, good. Now that he was moving, he couldn’t stop pacing, his hands clutching his arms. How had Dumbledore let him? How had Dumbledore let him?  
  
  
A new thought finally penetrated. How much harm had he done?  
  
Neville’s terrified incompetence. Not just Neville’s; dozens of students over the years had reacted like him. A minority, but significant. A smaller minority, refusing to learn in defiance. Harry. His refusal to master Occlumency. Arguably, then, Black’s death. What else?  
  
 _You have taken good thought for the protection of the students’ bodies… but what of their souls, Severus?_  
  
What harm had he done there? He knew—what harm his hatred of James did to him. Had he done that to his students? Almost certainly, in some cases. Impossible for him to evaluate, though perhaps the dead man could. Impossible to make amends, that he could see.  
  
 _But it was necessary,_ flared a final protest.   
  
No. Distrust was necessary, for his act. Not—what he had needed of them, to punish himself.  
  
  
He’d been pacing for hours, fists crossed over his chest. His eyes were bleak.   
  
Impossible to make amends, that he could see.  
  
 _You didn’t care._  
  
“I … care. And it does nothing! Alters nothing, corrects nothing, undoes nothing—“ He halted, gasping harshly in anguish. He was whispering to no one; there was no one he could ask. What good was this caring, what could it do, save cause him torment?  
  
 _Sev._  
  
Green eyes pierce him. Her face is intent.   
  
_Why should I be any different?_  
  
The words are those with which she had attacked him that night, but this time her voice is gentle.  
  
Snape blinked.   
  
_Why was I different for you?  
  
  
Lily. _What had made her different? Not her powers, not her prettiness, not even her talent for delight. Not just those.  
  
That she cared.   
  
She always cared.   
  
For a skinny greasy git, yes, but… for Mary and Petunia. The werewolf. Their Muggle schoolmates. For everyone she ever met. For abstract justice.  
  
  
 _His silver doe._  
  
  
Snape walked, shaking, to the window. He raised his arms, leaned against the dusty panes, and stared unseeing out at the light.   
  
  
No one is here with him. No one has been.  
  
  
 _Lily is dead. Her son must die. Why am I doing this, then?_  
  
  
Snape froze. He’d never thought of this. For months now, he hadn’t let himself think of this. His arms dropped; he collapsed slowly into the chair by the window, coiling around himself.  
  
He didn’t have to do this.  
  
He could leave. He could abandon . . . the boy to his death, his students to their fates. He will fail to protect them adequately, anyhow, no matter what anguished effort he makes.  
  
He could hide more effectively than Karkaroff, find a life removed from all this pain.   
  
He could rejoin the Death Eaters.   
  
He could try to usurp the Dark Lord’s place—he’s a better strategist, and sane, if lesser in power.  
  
He could die.   
  
  
_Why aren’t these options for me?_  
  
  
His hands are clenched so tightly the muscles spasm.  
  
Lily is dead. He remembered that crowded, desperate year, when every fibre of his being was bent on averting the death he’d brought on her. That made sense. Then. But she’s dead now, dead for years. All that is over.  
  
 _… If you truly loved her, your way forward is clear….protect Lily’s son…._  
  
But that had been Dumbledore’s game with him. Harry must die. He cannot save him.  
  
For revenge, then? His mouth twists. He knows that motive, knows it intimately; he’s wasted years seeking it from James and Sirius. That lust feels like—a hot and petty twisting. An inflamed wound. Not silver certitude.  
  
His promise to a dead man? He’s broken promises before. More solemn ones. Snape’s fist strikes his Mark in black amusement.  
  
The only thing that binds him—is his choice.  
  
And what a choice.   
  
Cruciated for every error. Dying at the Dark Lord’s hands if he is discovered—at the hands of friends, most likely, if he’s not. A power only among those he despises. Hated by those he respects. A traitor in everyone’s eyes, past all redemption. No reward, ever, no recognition. Presiding over torture and pretending to like it, for the scant protection he can provide unnoticed. And for what, if he should live so long? To tell a boy he must die and watch him go to his doom. Powerless to save him.  
  
Who’d choose this?  
  
Fine ambitions for a Slytherin.  
  
 _Why am I doing this?_  
  
Because it needs doing. It seems the only answer.  
  
His hands slowly opened. Severus regarded them in the dusty light from the window, listening to a dead man’s voice.  
  
 _It is our choices that show what we truly are._  
  
Snape raised his head.  
  
 _It is my choice._  
  
* L’etranger by Camus, inept translation my own.  
  
---  
  
 


	8. The Master of Misdirection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dumbledore's portrait has a suggestion which Snape finds offensive.

_Out of love, and because it needs doing.  
Emma Bull, Bonedance  
  
_Severus hesitated at the final door to the Headmaster’s office: his office, officially, in a few more days. There was much he needed to discuss with the portraits, to learn, to set in motion. But he needed this first. He stalked in and stopped. He managed to lift his eyes to the portrait behind the desk.  
  
“Dumbledore.” Severus’s throat was tight; he had to whisper. “How I behaved—towards my students. How badly did I hurt them?”  
  
Painted eyes widened in shock; the dead man leaned forward in his frame. “Severus. Phineas told me of the new potions you were creating. You test your potions on yourself, do you not?”  
  
Bleak eyes met blazing blue. The living man closed his eyes. He shook his head, not in negation, and awaited his answer.  
  
“Not irreparably, Severus. I took good care for that. You lost some children for your field who could have been good Potions students, at least one who might have been a Master—she’s fine personally, she’s doing research in Charms for the Ministry now—“  
  
The Hufflepuff girl. Took. Oh.   
  
Snape opened his eyes and grated, “My… hatred of James… influenced… my worst choices. Have I done that?”  
  
“No.” Dumbledore’s voice was quiet and forceful; Snape did not trust what it said. “Severus, I used this, as you can use it now. You were being a Death Eater. Frankly, who’d want to be too much like you? You drove some children away from the Dark Arts who might have been tempted. And for those whose resentment of your treatment was too strong—I did learn something from my mistake with you and the Marauders, after all.   
  
“It was not that their treatment of you was unfair; it was that you were so sure that mine, and that everyone’s, was. That you had no one you trusted. And—your mistake with Lily, so soon after—I’d counted on your retaining her friendship, you see. A child is hurt, but not damaged, to learn that people can be unjust. If they have someone to trust, they can hate the injustice without it turning to a cancer. I made sure the children you hurt always had a counterbalance.”  
  
“Harry…” Severus’s throat closed.  
  
“Harry. Yes. His hatred harms him. But … you observe, your hatred of James Potter led you to adopt his worst traits. When you arrived at Hogwarts, you retaliated viciously, sometimes disproportionately, when attacked, but you weren’t then a bully. You learned that from James even as James started to learn to stop. Has Harry done that with you? Adopted what he hates in you?”  
  
“No.” That at least was definite. Even thinking he was a murderer, the boy couldn’t use the Cruciatus curse against him in strength. The Sectumsempra that had so alarmed Snape had been used because of the boy’s misplaced trust in his younger self, not because he willed that degree of harm to Draco. Harry exhibited stupidity, not malice; he was culpable, certainly, but not driven by blind hatred.   
  
Harry wasn’t copying Snape’s mistakes; he was making his own. Snape relaxed slightly.  
  
“I watched for this danger, Severus, as you will need to watch. Your job will be harder. You can’t help the children directly yourself; you are playing the role of Death Eater even more than before. But you understand now that you are _playing_ it. I trust your subtlety to direct the children who need it to their Heads of Houses. And perhaps Horace, in particular, might benefit from your doses. A good man, but he tends to laziness, and to seeing what he wants.”  
  
At this reminder of his duty, Severus spoke more firmly.  
  
“Seeing what he wants… Yes. And not only him. I—realized—how much my own choices were based in self-deception, that’s why I created that potion. But not only _self_ -deception—deception. We were all carefully led, one step at a time, each one seeming—not so bad. We have that advantage now that the students know, if they will credit, how bad the Dark Lord can be. Back when he was first rising, it was possible to believe, for a long time, that—that there would be limits, that only necessary violence would be performed, that then things would settle in new—better—stability. That any atrocity one saw was an exception.”  
  
Dumbledore nodded, painted eyes intent. “Excellent, Severus; continue. Your potion is clearly designed to circumvent this. How else do you plan to act?”  
  
“What you hinted at before. I intend to show them where that path ends. To keep before their eyes what it truly means to be a Death Eater. The opposite of how the Dark Lord is operating. He introduces his changes at the Ministry one at a time: one new law, not so bad; another, not so much worse; the disappearance of one neighbor, the betrayal of one friend…. He expects me to do that here at Hogwarts, but I shall be, ah, incompetent in that regard. Show them the worst from the beginning, and keep it on display. If you acquiesce to this you are expected to acquiesce to the next thing, and then the next. Ensure that they know that the place to dig their feet in is at the start.”  
  
“’Incompetent’, “ snorted Dumbledore. “My Slytherin friend. You plan to use your little Cruciatus at the Welcoming Feast, perhaps?”  
  
“If I can arrange a provocation, yes; doing my best impersonation of dear Bellatrix. Ensure they know that’s what they must become if they choose that path…. Let them know that their Muggleborn friends are marked for _death_ , not just exiled from Hogwarts. Be obsequious in speaking of the Dark Lord—for all my apparent position I’m really a slave, abject before him. Perhaps I can find a way to indicate that he treats his followers worse than his foes. He has more access to us, after all. Some of my Slytherin children may be of help there. Draco, surely, will be a good example: the boy’s near crushed. Let the children know they are expected to master torture and the Dark Arts. Invite them to betray their friends who show resistance to the new regime. Shock them from the start, in short, and keep the pressure on. Never let them forget the reality of what we’re fighting.“  
  
He paused a moment.   
  
” Or rather, of course, of what I am urging them to espouse.”  
  
“Severus, the other professors and some of your students know your subtlety. How will you reconcile that with this?”  
  
Snape straightened suddenly, a smile blazing on his face. “My Master is triumphant. I’m unleashed.”   
  
“Intoxicated by your new power. Yes, perhaps. You look plausible just now. Be careful though, be careful—overplaying it could be fatal in any of several different ways.”   
  
“Indeed. A new tightrope for me to walk. It’s always good for a person to have a new challenge. I believe _you_ have been known to say so,” Snape intoned blandly.   
  
Dumbledore mused, “Severus, there is another danger that will require very delicate handling.”  
  
Snape raised his brows in inquiry.   
  
You have identified the danger to the children inherent in making them hate you too much. But there is another reaction that could be even more perilous. You are a strong wizard, a strong-willed man, and children crave strength. Adults also, of course, but the tendency is exacerbated in the young. They will often follow the strongest person around them, no matter where he leads, or how he is flawed.”  
  
Yes. Severus— recalled this tendency.   
  
Snape drew a breath; expelled it.  
  
Dumbledore mused, “You are now the strongest person here at Hogwarts. Many of the children, believing you to be a Death Eater, will be tempted to join just to be protected by your strength. How will you guard against this?”  
  
How indeed.   
  
Snape started, “My revised Fortitudo potion will help, but … it won’t suffice. It seems that I shall need to establish alternate sources of protection for the children. Ones that they can turn to without this danger.”   
  
Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Not just of protection as such, or not only that. Sources of hope. Examples of strength. Other people to follow. Harry Potter, of course. Ensuring that news of him circulates … that stories of him are strong in the children’s minds…. I should encourage everyone to listen to Potterswatch, probably by banning it…. Encourage Gryffindor to spread rumors….”   
  
Snape’s lips twisted at the words. Dumbledore nodded encouragingly.  
  
“The heads of houses… I have established a secret undertaking with the Dark Lord to allow them more leeway in discipline than the new rules would apparently allow. So the children can turn to them for some protection against me. That should help.”  
  
Dumbledore’s portrait smiled slightly.   
  
_Good so far, Severus. And…?_  
  
Annoying how well he could read the man’s smiles, really, even after the man was but a portrait.  
  
“Student leaders…I am counting on Longbottom, Lovegood, and Weasley to restart Dumbledore’s Army. If the children look to each other for leadership… “ Snape stopped abruptly.  
  
“Dumbledore. You did that before, did you not? In Umbridges’s time—but also before, in mine, when I was a student. To make us look to ourselves… when we thought we could not expect—adequate help—from adults in authority… The Ministry was ineffectual then too.“   
  
Dumbledore’s portrait smirked. There was no other word for it.   
  
_I—failed. Turned.  
  
Turned to the wrong source of strength. But most of us didn’t. Lily, James, Susan, Remus, Alice, Frank, Mary … even Sirius.  
  
Even Sirius. How humiliating._  
  
“Excellent, Severus!” The brisk tone gave Snape his warning: Ten points to Slytherin! But….   
  
Now something unsavory would come. Snape folded his arms and waited in silence.   
  
Dumbledore continued, “There is another side to this. You are setting up alternates, others to whom students can look for strength or protection or hope. This is excellent, but there is another facet you’ve not yet examined, Severus. You may wish to consider ways of undermining the willingness of students to depend on you for the leadership you cannot give while playing this role.”  
  
The safest response was silence. Snape waited, tight-lipped, not showing his trepidation.  
  
Dumbledore’s voice strengthened and entered lecture mode. “Think, Severus, of how one banishes a boggart. One acknowledges one’s strongest fear, and then makes it ridiculous. Deflates it.“   
  
Snape’s lips thinned. He was not going to assist this line of reasoning.  
  
Dumbledore paused, looking encouragingly at Snape for comment. Faced with Snape’s uncompromising silence, he explained cheerfully, “I am suggesting you might, as it were, offer yourself for the Riddikulus spell. Offer yourself as a target for humor…”  
  
 _No._ Snape’s imagination—honed as it was on years of the Dark Lord’s tortures and humiliations—could not surpass Albus Dumbledore at his worst. The Vulture Hat writ large. Just, no.  
  
The portrait made itself more explicit, undiscouraged by Snape’s appalled silence. “There are various things you might do while you are portraying yourself as a Death Eater. You could deliberately overplay your role; fury, especially, can easily look ridiculous when played as being out of control. You could fail abysmally, entertainingly even, to catch children who mock you… “  
  
Dumbledore, damn his bloody painted eyes, looked almost Slytherin.  
  
Snape would not acquiesce to this. He had sacrificed his reputation and his life without complaint: at least let him retain some dignity!   
  
The blue eyes were compelling. Snape tore his gaze away and scowled at the floor. It wasn’t as though a bloody painted portrait could use the Imperius!  
  
“This will of course serve several purposes. It will reduce the children’s level of fear to more tolerable levels, giving them the only comfort you personally can offer in what will be a very difficult time for them. It will obviate any tendency on their part to admire you so much as to follow where you appear to have led. Finally, the charade will benefit you, Severus. I feel quite sure that you have not yet considered this aspect of the matter.”  
  
 _Benefit?_ Snape’s lips went white with rage. Could a dead man go mad? He made the mistake of raising his head to glare.  
  
Dumbledore was unmistakably twinkling at him. _Twinkling._  
  
Snape would kill him for that twinkle. If he hadn’t already, right.  
  
“I know you, my sly friend. You have always enjoyed knowing secrets, being able to manipulate people through your superior knowledge and skills…”  
  
 _Unlike you, you inveterate meddler?_ Snape thought savagely. He pressed his lips more tightly together.  
  
“One thing that has long concerned me, Severus, is your grimness. You have had, alas, had few sources of innocent amusement in your life. But think, now, how you will relish manipulating children into covert ridicule and disrespect, making them imagine they’re defying you, when they’re actually perfectly fulfilling your schemes….”   
  
Dumbledore’s voice trailed off invitingly. He smiled beatifically at Snape.  
  
Severus stared in disbelief. _Relish?_ The man was right. Looked at properly—it would be funny.  
  
Like visualizing Longbottom’s face at being told he’s Snape’s best ally.   
  
Eavesdropping on a child boasting of getting one over on him—when he’d engineered the whole event—would be… truly entertaining. Snape’s lips twitched. He raised a hand, too late, to try to hide it.  
  
Dumbledore saw, blast him. The blue eyes brightened further.  
  
This joke, like all the best ones, would only deepen with time.  
  
Snape’s natural indignation at being ridiculed could be used to mask other reactions. Snape was a master of misdirection, after all, of using one truth to hide others. He was expert at choosing the most useful reaction to display, out of all of his reactions, to create a chosen effect. If he were triumphant or amused when a child defied him—as well as enraged—no one could know, unless he chose to display it.  
  
Overreaction fueled by his instinctive anger would well serve his purposes. It would show him out of control, undignified, weak.   
  
Snape would contrast beautifully with the late Headmaster, who had been secure enough to laugh at himself. Dumbledore would be remembered—rather rosily—as a power holding all of Hogwarts in his sheltering strength. Snape, as the Dark Lord’s agent, would seem rigid and ridiculous in contrast. He could pattern himself on Umbridge. He would demonstrate the weakness underlying Death Eater violence as she’d shown the Ministry’s folly.   
  
Oh, and the Carrows would so _ably_ second him in this! Snape’s eyes gleamed at the thought of their inadvertent cooperation. How well chosen they were, in fact. One might say, perfect for their parts.   
  
The children would fear, but also sneer. Even the Slytherins most predisposed to the Death Eaters would disdain them.   
  
Severus would manipulate the children. He would protect them.   
  
He would have fun.  
  
 _Riddikulus_


	9. An Argument between Colleagues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape realizes that Dumbledore has set him up to die, and struggles with the issue of how to protect his students posthumously.

_Note: This chapter takes place much later: the following April. There’s a short epilogue to follow. As always, the characters and setting belong to JKR.  
  
  
Lying can be done with words, and also with silence.  
  
Adrienne Rich, “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying”  
  
  
  
_Snape registered Dumbledore’s sudden sharp movement and broke off what he was saying. He stopped pacing to stare at the dead man. The portrait was silent and evaded Snape’s eyes.   
  
Snape considered those facts. After a moment, he walked to his desk and seated himself, spinning his chair to face the portrait. “Dumbledore. Do you have something to tell me?”  
  
The dead man remained mute a moment more and then said, “Severus, you know that there are things I still cannot tell you. One should assume nothing.”  
  
Snape’s mouth thinned. He had just been speaking to the portraits about the likelihood that the Dark Lord would wish him to remain in residence at Hogwarts over the summer. What assumptions had he been making?   
  
_That I shall remain.  
  
  
Ah. _  
  
  
“We are not discussing whether you choose to confide in me, Dumbledore. We are discussing the fact that I have made plans contingent on my continued survival and presence— an extremely foolish oversight on my part which you have not corrected. I have assumed that I could defend myself adequately from an attack by a student or colleague, and that the Dark Lord would choose to preserve my life while he still believes me both useful and loyal.”  
  
Painted hands tightened on a painted chair, but Dumbledore said nothing.  
  
Snape lowered his voice.  
  
“I am to understand that this is not the case? That I should expect to be betrayed to the Dark Lord, or that he’ll abandon his sense of my utility? Dumbledore, is another of your plans soon to mature? How long may I expect to have? I need to make arrangements!”  
  
Dumbledore hesitated. “Voldemort may eventually come to Hogwarts to, ah, pay his last respects to me. He may possibly have decided at that point to eliminate you; more likely, he may decide subsequently to do so. It depends on how quickly he realizes some of his expectations have been thwarted. I cannot be more explicit than that. I don’t know—I can’t know—in what order certain events will occur. You may be in no danger at all, outside of what must seem normal to you, of course. From what you’ve reported of his recent actions, the danger is at any rate not imminent.“  
  
“This is fortunate, as my game would almost certainly be apparent to my successor were I to die today. You have considered, Dumbledore, that my successor will be the Dark Lord’s tool in reality, and that I will, as it stands, have betrayed myself to him?  
  
“To take but one example: I’ve been to minimal trouble concealing that the castle’s food budget is for too many people; my prepared excuse was incompetence, that I was unfamiliar with the budget appropriate to this year’s diminished student body. I should have set up a cover embezzlement scheme. Close investigation now would show that the Galleons have, in fact gone to food—and by now nearly every child in Hufflepuff is implicated in smuggling to the children in the Forest.   
  
“I don’t judge that the Dark Lord would move at once against the centaurs—that was the reason for using them!—so the Muggle-born children should be safe enough for a time. But he would punish the Hufflepuffs for their conspiracy. Moreover, tracing this would give the Dark Lord cause to doubt my loyalty entirely—and to look more closely at all I’ve been doing here.”   
  
Snape’s cheeks paled with anger and he stood again to confront the portrait. “Did you not understand when I told you, Dumbledore, that the children are relatively safe physically only because the Dark Lord assumes he will have them in the end? If he truly comes to believe that he has no chance of winning most of them, he is perfectly capable of massacring every soul in the Castle! That would almost certainly be a tactical error; it would solidify resistance against him in the general population. But however desirable that result might be, I, for one, am not eager to sacrifice these children to make it happen.   
  
“You owed me that information, or at least to point out my error in making plans that were contingent on my being alive to carry through my deceptions! And what of Potter? You’ve made your plan for him depend on my survival, while another plan may bring about my premature death! Have you made other arrangements to tell Harry—what he needs to know—if I die before it is time to do so?”  
  
The portrait said, “Not completed arrangements, no, Severus. I have an alternate plan.”  
  
Snape’s lip curled. “Undoubtedly using _me_ as the conduit for the information affords the opportunity for a touching _rapprochement_ , but I think in this case practical considerations should prevail. The considerations being, as I understand, that the information needs to reach Potter within, ah, a specified range of events, and from a source relatively insusceptible to the Dark Lord’s Legilimency?”  
  
Dumbledore nodded. Snape continued angrily, “That last consideration reduces the options, I should think, to myself and to your portraits. Possibly Phineas would be kind enough to give Miss Granger a message that Potter should seek out one of your portraits when the proper circumstances arise… which, obviously, may not be the same as the circumstances you gave me as _my_ cue. Harry does know my Muffliato spell. With that and his cloak, he should be able to reach one of your portraits and converse with you in privacy. Though I’m sure that not even a portrait would relish that conversation—any more than I should.”  
  
Dumbledore said slowly, “That has always been my alternate plan, Severus. You’re right that wanting a _rapprochement_ , as you phrase it, between you two was one of my reasons for arranging matters as I had. But it is not, as you seem to think, for reasons of sentimentality. Hate weakens Harry; it makes him less able to do what he must. I know Harry. He holds on to anger. This is one of his greatest weaknesses; you saw that in trying to teach him Occlumency. But he is also just, and he knows how to appreciate sacrifice and loyalty. It will be better for _him_ if he knows your true motives, Severus, and best if that knowledge comes from you. If you survive that long, I do hold you to your promise to tell him. In case you do not, I request that you leave a phial of memories here in this office, for Harry to see if you die before you can reveal yourself to him.”  
  
Snape raised his head slightly, his eyes glittering. “And you, Dumbledore, will you have Phineas contact Miss Granger tonight, or as soon as may be, to implement your _alternate plan_?”  
  
“I fear to do that, Severus. I fear Harry’s realizing he has a means of contacting me. My portrait hadn’t woken when he saw it, and he is subject to the temptation of wishing to bring back his dead. I thought to wait until the necessity presented itself, if you did not spare me that necessity altogether.”  
  
“But if Miss Granger   
loses her bag tomorrow? What of your _alternate plan_ then?”  
  
“A point, Severus. Hmm… I could have Phineas say that we cannot use that means to communicate while you are alive, lest you, as Headmaster, spy on us. Harry knows the portraits normally obey the Headmaster—if we say the portraits are bound to tell truth if asked directly and that you regularly interrogate me as to whether I have been in contact with him—that should cover it. Would you be so kind as to consent to mislead the young for a good purpose, Phineas?”   
  
Black’s portrait snorted in response.   
  
“And you, Severus; will you prepare a phial, and leave it where I can tell Harry how to find it—and instructions as to whether you want it destroyed afterward?”  
  
Snape bent his head and was utterly still for a moment. Then he spoke without inflexion. “Behind your portrait. Instructions shall be left in the phial.”  
  
Snape shook his head slightly, dismissing the previous matter, and sat down again. “We need to determine what evidence I may have left for my successor. I suspect it was a grave error to have used this office openly. I assume it would be sealed against someone who were truly the Dark Lord’s tool, as it was against Umbridge?” He waited for the nods from the portraits.  
  
“Then my very presence here betrays my loyalties. It seems we need to find a way to hold the office physically open for my successor while still withholding the Headmaster’s capacities. The two obvious approaches would be to modify the original enchantment, or to Confund the gargoyles, stair, and door to allow physical access while the rest of the office remains, ah, uncooperative. Comments, or a third alternative I haven’t considered?”  
  
A shellac-darkened portrait answered. “The original enchantments were set up in my time—a dispute with the Board of Directors over a clearly unqualified appointment—and they are tied to the portraits. It requires a unanimous decision of previous Heads to exclude someone.” She sniffed. “Dolores Umbridge clearly met the qualifications for exclusion. I feel confident your successor will as well, but as it’s tied to us, we should be able to control it along the lines you’ve indicated. Never been done before, but then Umbridge has only been the second to undergo exclusion…. We really don’t use it casually; mere incompetence,” she said, glancing pointedly towards one of her neighboring portraits, “won’t expel the Head. I will point out that, if you’re dead, your portrait will presumably have a voice in the matter.”  
  
“My portrait!” Snape looked startled for a moment. Then a gleam entered his eyes. “Ah… and I assume my successor would face stony ostracism from the other portraits, while my own was available to give counsel and advice? The more reason to keep my loyalties concealed, then.”   
  
The prospect apparently appealed; he ran a finger over his lips, covering a small and rather evil smile. He mused pleasurably for a moment and then turned briskly to other matters.  
  
“The Headmaster should always be ready to delegate more routine tasks,” Snape intoned blandly, “so I have had Minerva take over administering the potions for me, with Slughorn brewing. So I don’t believe that can be traced to me even if detected. I’ve made sure Slughorn has adequate stores of the two rarer ingredients; the Dark Lord doesn’t seem yet to have realized he might track the potions’ manufacture by the purchases of those two, but if he does Hogwarts should still be protected into fall term at least. Hiding the fact that the Castle has been provisioning the children in the Forest should be easy enough, now that I’m alerted to the necessity.”   
  
He looked up, slit-eyed, at Black’s portrait. “I believe you were known, sir, for your, ah, accounting skills, among others? As I recall, our House’s common areas were significantly refurbished during your tenure?”   
  
Phineas Black looked affronted at the suggestion. Then he nodded slightly.   
  
“I look forward to your assistance, then. We’ll need to take thought too for whether we can set up a way to continue to provision the Forest under the new regime—I confess I don’t see a solution, but perhaps your ingenuity will suggest one. As to the enchantments on the Carrows’ rooms, they have already been set up to look like Dumbledore’s legacy.” He frowned slightly. “It may be possible to use death magic to make that protection permanent—even to extend it—if I can do so unnoticeably.”  
  
Dumbledore interrupted sharply, “Death magic is the darkest—I would not have you put your soul at risk!”  
  
Snape answered coolly, “Death magic is normally used for the darkest of purposes, but was not Lily’s sacrifice a form of it—and your own, protecting Harry’s quest? There’s power in death; I see no reason why mine should not serve a purpose. Assuming, as I said, that it can be performed without betraying my true purposes. I have, as it happens, never researched death-driven curses, but no one will be much surprised, now, by any… darker interests I may evidence.”  
  
Dumbledore snapped, “Even the research is dangerous! You must not proceed on those lines!”  
  
Snape leaned back in the headmaster’s chair and crossed his arms, hiding his hands in the blackness of his robes. Dark hair swung back from a white face as he lifted his black eyes to meet the dead man’s hard blue stare.   
  
Snape’s voice was velvet. “ _Must_ not, Dumbledore? _You_ chose to use _your_ death in a way _I_ —protested. You risked my soul then for your purposes. You can hardly complain now if I choose to do the same. If you can establish that Lily’s death magic was ineffective, you are welcome to return to this topic. For now, I have two more pressing questions regarding this death that you are bringing on me: Is the Dark Lord likely to decide to kill me slowly or on impulse, and is he likely to do so with his own power or through a proxy?”  
  
Dumbledore glared at him in silence.   
  
Snape assumed the air of patience he reserved for his blasts of sarcasm against first-years.  
  
“If the Dark Lord comes to the decision slowly, I may be able to detect him grooming my replacement. Knowing his choice would be an obvious advantage, as well as giving warning to tie up my affairs. If he is likely to decide on impulse, however, I should not waste my energy watching. As to the other question, if he kills me himself—it opens further possibilities for death magic. A protection on Hogwarts, for example, might be disguised as a curse against my murderer—along the ‘May all your spells misfire!’ line. I think I could convincingly simulate being, ah, spiteful enough to wish to deprive my killer of his favorite spells. It might even be possible to set up true wards.”   
  
At the thought, Snape turned to another portrait. “Madam Selwyn, might I have access to your notes on the last ward revision?”  
  
“Behind my portrait,” the bronze-and-blue witch responded.  
  
Snape returned his heavy gaze to Dumbledore’s portrait, his thoughts hidden.  
 _  
  
The easiest form of death magic is the death curse: against the Carrows, perhaps, or even against all proximate Death Eaters. Such things have been done. That might, depending on circumstances, be the best use of my death. I must weigh, also, whether I can accomplish more with a death curse or by misguiding my successor. I can ponder all this later—I hope. First I must ensure I leave no evidence endangering the children._  
  
  
Dumbledore said reluctantly, “He is likely to decide quickly in the end, but after much deliberation of the overall problem I will have given him. And he is extremely likely, I should say almost certain, to do it himself.”  
  
“Are you withholding other information that affects my duties here?”  
  
“No, Severus. I will confide in you if it becomes safe to do so. I distrust you—only as I distrusted myself, and was right to do so.”  
  
“And … the boy, Dumbledore? Harry, whom you do profess to trust? Are you hiding more things from him that affect his duty?”  
  
“I must, still. There are choices he has to make unknowing. But … he took the Philosopher’s Stone from the Mirror. I think he can find his way to the right ending.”  
  
Snape grimaced at that and then returned to the main issue. He swept all the portraits with his black gaze. “Obviously I need to hide or destroy my original potions formulae. I can bring to mind no other written evidence.” He raised his eyebrows in an implied question: no answer.   
  
Snape ticked off points on long fingers. “My using this office, the accounts, the enchantments on the Carrows’ rooms, the potions. Does anyone perceive anything else that might betray my loyalties to my successor? Things I can be proven or suspected to have done that don’t fit my supposed role? Incongruities that might catch my successor’s attention should the Dark Lord find a subtle person for the post?”  
  
Selwyn’s portrait said thoughtfully, “If the Room of Requirements is penetrated, Dumbledore’s eye may be detected, which you should have been able to use to spy on the Army. In general, that you have clearly not reported to your alleged master the true state of affairs here.”  
 _  
  
That I haven’t reported the truth. Trust a Ravenclaw’s talons to grasp the heart of a problem. Facts always contradict the best-constructed falsehood. Little loose ends, the binding of which leaves others… truth has such unfrayed simplicity in comparison. Elegance, as it were.  
  
Like a potion, really; one right and perfect way to brew it, so many ways to go wrong. Fortunately, few (least of all the Dark Lord, blinded by his arrogance) look past a construction to the truth, if the lies are well tailored to flatter their existing ideas.   
  
But I am weary of my inventions.   
_  
  
“For the first,” Snape said to her coolly, “I have surely had no better cooperation from this Office than my successor will receive. I can’t imagine what good you deceased Heads thought you could do, spying on the children as you were; indeed, I can’t imagine what good you portraits do at all. You’re inconsequential; I hope to have made that clear to the Dark Lord.  
  
“As to concealing the, ah, true state of affairs… on the one hand, I have never been perceptive enough, even with skills in Legilimency, to care much what lies under surface obedience. I have always been content to be hated so long as surface respect was rendered. Why should I have changed as Headmaster? I witnessed fear, sullenness, a wish to defy that few dared act on. Well, perhaps more than a few. For on the other hand, obviously I have been terrified of being punished for my incompetence—which you must own to have been impressive!—in letting the situation get so out of hand. Self-deception and cowardice… unassailable explanations for my lapses in life, why should they not serve at my death also? Perhaps I should leave a half-written report—blustering, blundering, and self-justifying—making it clear I was concealing Hogwarts’ deteriorating morale to save my arse.  
  
“And perhaps it is time for obedience, if not morale, to improve somewhat.”   
  
Snape looked down, his hair shadowing his face.  
 _  
  
When brewing a potion at high heat, one tends the cauldron without interruption, without lapse, with exquisite attention. If one must leave it, one banks the fire. One banks it, or risks disaster. I have been so proud of the children’s defiance. But I cannot trade their lives for it. Not their lives.  
  
Yet—I would have traded my own life, gladly, not to have betrayed Lily—at their age, at any age.  
  
What would I trade their lives for?   
  
Their souls.   
  
But this danger is too immediate. I will not trade their lives. _  
  
  
Snape’s hands clenched.   
  
He turned back in pain to the portraits. “Too many of my protections will lapse at my death. I may need to start adjusting the children to a harsher regime. Almost spot the Hufflepuff’s food brigade—almost overhear the Slytherins’ treason—almost catch Longbottom’s friends on the seventh floor. Teach them more caution, especially as the Dark Lord seems to be increasing the pressure.”   
  
_I have been indulging myself watching them. I haven’t taught them how much danger they truly are in.  
  
He could still kill them all. _  
  
  
The lines on his face deepened.   
  
“Let the Carrows have more scope in—discipline. Dumbledore, your judgment?”  
  
Dumbledore’s painted eyes had lost all trace of twinkle. “The balancing you have been doing, preserving their bodies, and their souls, and their spirits and courage….I think, Severus, that only a Slytherin could have been subtle enough, devious enough, to encompass it. Yet I agree: you need now to damp their defiance enough to make them keep their heads down if you do have a successor. I will point out that the shock of your murder will incline most of the children to freeze and go more cautiously with the new regime. Moreover, the fact that such a loyal servant as you could be murdered will not incline them to increased trust in either the Dark Lord or your replacement.”  
  
“Reassuring points, both,” Snape said dryly.  
  
They were, in fact; his death would be his ally in that regard.   
  
Snape’s hands relaxed slightly. He scanned the portraits once more. “I rely on you all, then, to give this matter your utmost thought. Bring to my immediate attention any discrepancies you spot, anything I overlook, any ideas you may have. Bear in mind that the Headmaster normally has a full staff of the living to advise him: I have only you.”  
  
He swept out to return to his private rooms.   
  
_My carelessness has been inexcusable. To fall into the error of acting as though my survival were assured, or even likely—at this stage of the game! I knew better at twenty. And letting pride at my children’s courage override my best judgment for their safety…. I could have gotten them killed. I still might, if I don’t move fast enough now._  
  
Snape stalked off in cold disgust at his own folly


	10. Epilogue:  A New Promise

_I wish you had not been someone I loved so._  
 _Patricia McKillip, Harpist in the Wind_  
  
Hours later, a quiet voice said, “Severus.”  
  
Snape looked up from the ledgers, his eyes glinting in annoyance. “If you have evicted Salazer in order to harangue me privately about Death magic, Dumbledore, I assure you that I am fully occupied at the moment.”  
  
“To speak with you privately, certainly, Severus. I have no intention of haranguing you; I quite accept that you will make your own decisions. However, one of your earlier statements makes me fear you are laboring under a misapprehension, and I wish to correct it.”  
  
That did not bode well. Snape paused and then nodded grimly, pushing his forgeries aside.   
  
Dumbledore said, “You complained of how I chose to use my death—”  
  
“I did not complain,” Snape interrupted swiftly.   
  
Dumbledore glanced at him sharply and Snape subsided.  
  
Dumbledore continued, “Severus, I must apologize. I had not realized that I had left you believing that I had asked something of you which endangered your soul. I thought that you would have comprehended that that was not the risk to you.”  
  
Snape’s voice went flat. “Murder rends the soul.”  
  
The dead man leaned forward in the wood frame, seeking the black eyes evading his. “True enough, but you have not taken into consideration how the soul may be repaired. By remorse, Severus. The pain of which can be so extreme that many murderers choose to leave their souls maimed rather than reclaim them at that cost. You and I can both attest, Severus, to that agony.”  
  
Snape rose during the last words and retreated to the far corner. He did not quite turn his back on the painting, but he averted his face. The voice pursued him inexorably.  
  
“I knew full well when I demanded that you kill me what it would cost you, Severus. It was not your soul. Your soul was not torn, not for a moment. I knew your remorse would be simultaneous with the action. I never risked your soul, Severus. What I broke was your heart.  
  
“And my own. I knew what I asked you to endure; and I knew too that I compromised your already slender chance of survival.”  
  
Snape stood silently in his corner, his eyes on his hands.  
  
Dumbledore’s voice continued, “I have used you, you are right, Severus. I have sent you to be tortured. I have sent you to what might have been your death, what may still be. I have made you lie for me and spy for me, and I have demanded of you services that rend your heart. I know what it will cost you to tell Harry. I have used you, Severus, ruthlessly, even cruelly. But only ever with your consent. I trusted you to have the strength and will to endure, and—I needed you, Severus.   
  
“But I never risked your soul. Never that. Not for any consideration. And I will not have you do so now.  
  
  
“Severus.” The dead voice dried to a whisper. “I am asking for your word.”   
  
Snape moved slightly, raising his head to gaze impassively back at the portrait. Painted eyes pierced black.  
  
  
“Severus… please…”  
  
  
Snape gave a stiff nod

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit painful to reread; it's my first fiction, written when I still believed in Dumbledore's fundamental benevolence, wisdom, and love for his main puppets.


End file.
